Category: Project Management

Cobb’s Paradox

Cobb’s Paradox: We know why projects fail, we know how to prevent their failure – so why do they still fail? I was never a fan of The Standish Group’s CHAOS report. Ignoring some of the more specific complaints about the methodology, definitions, audience, etc., my biggest challenge is that...

Complexity ‘Can’ Be Planned For

Just because ‘you’ learned about it today doesn’t mean it’s never been done before. In a recent post on LinkedIn re: the James Webb Space Telescope I made the comment that it had been completed through “meticulously planning how the emergent practices would be applied.” This was in part to...

First Principles of Project Management

It seems ‘first principles’ is one of the newest corporate ‘buzzphrases’, popularized in large part by Elon Musk when he explained his approach with SpaceX and making privatized space travel affordable. And so because Elon said it, and we all want to sound like our ideas and approaches are ‘grounded...