Experience suggests risk management happens after we have already encountered numerous and severe risks.  We can see engineers bringing “risks” to the project manager when we are already witnessing the symptoms and the impact to the project is inevitable. To be relevant, risk management has to occur when there is time to plan actions that […]

A qualitative analysis will generally involve a subjective level of assessment. The classic Kastle-Meyer test uses phenolphthalein to check for blood—it is quick and cheap and eliminating expensive and specious DNA testing save times and money. Quantitative analysis, as the name implies, uses measurements to assess the topic of concern. Both have their place in […]

Risk management is often considered a project management function, but that is not necessarily so. For any sort of endeavor we will be well served if we have some consideration of risk and the management. For example, our previous blog posts discussed configuration management. We saw how a wayward configuration management (or lack of configuration […]

MIL-STD-973 lists configuration identification as the first step in the configuration management (CM) process. We do not think this is some bureaucratic whim, but rather, one of the most important components of CM. Are speaking about systems, subsystems, components, parts, software revisions, and more? The simple answer is, yes! To avoid confusion when using bills […]

by Jon M Quigley and Wally Stegall This post is a flashback to the earlier series about prototypes (https://valuetransform.com/planning-prototype-parts). A recent event reminded me of one other area we did not cover in this series. Such is the way of the blog. Consider the organization that decides to limit the number of prototype parts to […]

The sooner you move away from project management activities based upon hope, the sooner your organization makes a recovery to the efficient enterprise you desire. I have noticed a rash of project schedules wherein each task lays end to end as if the prediction of the; task start, progress, and completion times are known without […]

Beware the “I know, I know” syndrome from an enthusiastic employee. The event occurs when the employee remembers a similar incident with a returned part, production line failure, or software issue. Unfortunately, reasoning from effects to causes is actually a logical fallacy called “affirming the consequent.” We cannot assume that a given effect has but […]

One of the most important concepts we have seen in any environment where we need to get things done is the POWER OF THE ROUTINE TASK. Basically, we make any work that needs to be accomplished part of a routine, say, in the morning, when we begin our workaday activities. Some of these tasks are […]

Are you tired of training that is mostly blather from the speaker/teacher/trainer? We use techniques that eliminate this issue. For example, we are fond of “training games” that allow our clients to get some person-to-person and hands on activity. We also ask you to work examples of the kind of material we are training on; […]

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