Comments for Shift Happens!

Comment on Conduct a Pre-mortem by Mike Clayton

Mike Clayton — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:19:16 +0000

Terry, thank you for signing up – welcome on-board.
I don’t have any data on the use of pre-mortems. As I say in the article, the idea was first put forward, I believe, by Gary Klein. He is a psychologist who specialises in studying and advising on (through his business: http://www.macrocognition.com/index.html) decision-making in complex environments.
I have used the method in outline to help me risk-assess one specific project, because I hit on the basic idea for myself. I did not learn of his very much more structured and thought-out process until after I had left day-to-day PM and moved into training, researching and writing. So I cannot offer you real practical experience and can only recommend you follow up on the leads to Gary’s writing, above.
Best of luck to you, Terry.
Mike

Comment on Conduct a Pre-mortem by terry reilly

terry reilly — Tue, 21 May 2013 03:07:06 +0000

Hi Mike I have signed up for the newsletter and await it eagerly. So far have enjoyed your work on pre mortems. We are an Australian management company with an interest in improving implementation of our change projects.
This is fairly new to Australia ( only one site at our science agency). Do you have any idea of how many/types of organizations that have tried the pre mortem approach in the US? Where have you tried it?

Cheers

Terry

Comment on Four Types of Risk by Matthew Squair

Matthew Squair — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:56:08 +0000

And in response to Glenn, yes I agree that it’s all ‘Uncertainty’. However I don’t agree that it’s all epistemic. I think there’s a useful differentiation between those unknowns about which we can say something meaningful, and potentially do so mathematically, versus those uncertainties which we can’t. I’ve used the term ‘ontological’ to denote the cardinal difference between the question of what we understand reality to be (a question that is ontological in nature) versus what (and how) we ‘know’ about that reality ( a question epistemic in nature). I think it’s a useful exercise in classification and maps well into the four quadrant model of knowledge.

Comment on Four Types of Risk by Matthew Squair

Matthew Squair — Mon, 13 May 2013 04:09:01 +0000

Risk can also exist in the Unknown, Known quadrant. For example if risk is ‘known’ in one group (say Morton Thiokol’s engineers) but not effectively communicated to another (say NASA and Thiokol management) then you can say that the resultant management decision (say to launch on a cold day well outside historical norms) was made under uncertainty (a known/unknown). Information needs to get to the right parts of an organisation to be effective.

Comment on Four Types of Risk by Matthew Squair

Matthew Squair — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:23:08 +0000

Hi Mike, I wrote a followup piece on the concept of four quadrant risk (and the philosophy of Don Rumsfeld) which can be found here http://wp.me/px0Kp-1Gf. As an interesting note, I’m aware that to reduce ontological uncertainty (unknown, unknown)in climate change studies it’s common practice to run different models of the same climate processes and cross compare the results. I like the diagram by the way

Comment on Four Types of Risk by Glen B. Alleman

Glen B. Alleman — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:59:00 +0000

Mike, the four risk “types” are all epistemic. You lack knowledge and you can acquire knowledge by “buying it.” “Buy it” means more research, more testing, prototype, or other means of acquiring information that will reduce the uncertainty.
Matthew’s use the terms aleatory, epistemic etc. should start with “uncertainty.” This are classifications of uncertainty, that result in risk.
Aleatory uncertainty results in “natural variances.” Demining Variances. The resulting risk can not be “brought down.” Only margin can protect you from that risk. Schedule, cost, and technical “margins.”
Even in your upper right box, the Known Knowns may be epistemic. Aleatory uncertainty only has a probability distribution, but you don’t “know” the probability of on outcome. Just the distribution function. The variance that will “naturally” occur on that activity, or product, or measurement.
One non project example is the water pump mounting bolt holes for a Toyota Camry. The machine that makes the holes, doesn’t make them perfectly. The is “slop” in them. There is an uncertainty to their “exact” location and dimensions. Do “margin” is made for the receiving positions on the engine block so if the water pump is “within tolerance” it will fit the “within tolerance” block holes.
For a project, activity durations need “slop” to assure they fit within the planned completion date. This is an aleatory uncertainty that can be discovered with Monte Carlo simulation, but we can’t “buy down” this uncertainty without changing the underlying statistical generating function for the activity.

Comment on Online Project Management Software by Biziix Project Management System

Biziix Project Management System — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:07:33 +0000

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Comment on Six Strategies for Managing Risk by Popular Project Management Blog Posts From The Last 7 DaysProject News Today

Popular Project Management Blog Posts From The Last 7 DaysProject News Today — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 10:20:41 +0000

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Comment on Project Goals and Objectives by Richard Quinn

Richard Quinn — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 12:39:33 +0000

Thanks for the discussion, Mike!

Neither PRINCE2 nor PMBOK define the terms goal and objective in their glossaries. PRINCE2 is cheeky enough to claim that project management is about delivering objectives, without bothering to define what an objective is. PMBOK only talks about requirements – fair enough but not helpful for this discussion.

Perhaps these terms are layman’s terms, and are thus resistant to having a unified meaning amongst practitioners.

Comment on Project Goals and Objectives by Mike Clayton

Mike Clayton — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 12:13:14 +0000

Richard
Your use of the phrase “tactical deliverables” shows clearly the difference in the way we each use the term “objectives”. When you say “An objective might be to first move all employees into temporary offices in building C” I take that to be a method statement. This sets up your project approach, or strategy. I long ago gave up trying to justify my distinction between goals and objectives with dictionaries (one even defined a goal as an objective and, yes, an objective as a goal. The definitions I offer are a useful distinction and I choose to label the two concepts:

– what do you want?
– how do you want it

… with the words “goal” and “objective”.

I don’t suggest they are any more right than any other definitions, but lots of people do find them very useful in defining their projects.