Dennis DavisConsultant| Davis ConsultingAntioch, Ca, United States
OK, first let me apologize up front if this topic has been beaten to death in other discussions but I haven't come across the exact solution to my problem. In a nutshell, I'm helping to institute a new SDLC model for company complete w/ templates, processes, etc. I'm jumping into the middle of the project and evaluating the usefulness of some of the templates and how to modify them to be more useful. In particular, the templates for the company's BA include: 1) business requirements and 2) functional spec.(one version for use cases and one version w/out use cases). Now, my question is twofold:
1. Shouldn't the use cases in the truest sense, be part of the bus. reqs template since its a method of gathering functional reqs?
2. If I do re-buld the bus req template to incorporate use cases, is there a real need for a functional spec?
I hope my questions are clear enough to elicit some good responses. I've worked on projects that have used everything from use cases to SRSs to functional and/or tech requirements docs but this is the first time that I have had to truly consider what is the purpose for some of these docs. Thanx for the responses. Saving Changes...
Eric, I am confused by your posts. One the one hand, you seem to criticize the post about the value of different processes such as Scrum, yet you cite, advocate, and provide a link to the Swaber and Beedle pdf which is Scrum. You then criticize another post which simply endorses the importance of processes and best practices, yet you say you are not anti-process. You say that you are offering insight, but I don't see any from your posts or your blog. The Carnegie Mellon has a Capability Maturity Model that has five levels ranging from ad hoc (level 1) to continuous improvement (level 5). You seem to be firmly implanted in a CMM level 1, ad hoc, mindset. Or do you think that the Carnegie Mellon SEI is just as "bad" as PMI? You say you are heated up on account of your management teams's actions. Assuming that they are only trying to improve things, what would you recommend that they do? Perhaps, put a link from the company intranet to your blog? Saving Changes...
1. Yes, you are confused, that is your problem not mine! 2. If you take the time to read and understand you might eventually get it. 3. CMM is based on the same erroneous assumptions as PMI/PMBOK etc – so it is just as “bad” and is responsible for institutionalising these mistaken approaches even further. 4. The road to hell is paved with good intentions to “improve things”. 5. I recommend that they get an education, start to think critically and get to know their trade rather than looking for stupid shortcuts by jumping on FADs and bandwagons. (reading the books I have taken the time to recommend here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/lis...7063490-1410224 would be a good start). 6. Everyone at work is VERY aware of my opinions and my blog! Saving Changes...
Anonymous
So Eric, your answer is that management should tell people to read books and think critically? Right. Have fun with your blog! Saving Changes...
No, completely wrong. You should trying reading what I have actually written rather than putting words in my mouth. Since you have failed to understand I’ll spell it out a little bit further. There are many ways to come at this but probably the simplest one is the one I have pointed you towards at : http://www.controlchaos.com/download/Book%20Excerpt.pdf. Based on the critique in this article (of the erroneous belief that PM and IT development can ever be "defined" processes) my answer, using the terminology of the article, is that we have to base our development approaches and PM guidance on the knowledge that they are "Empirical" processes. By the way re your earlier confusion, ie that I "advocate, and provide a link to the Swaber and Beedle pdf which is Scrum", if you actually read what I wrote (rather than seeing what you imagined I wrote) you'd see that I only pointed you towards their CRITIQUE as a useful resource. At no point did I advocate Scrum (their solution to the problems they outline in their critique). Anonymous, if you want to get on top of these very difficult problems and so have something informed and worthwhile to say about PM you will have to start thinking a very great more clearly. PM and IT development are very difficult problems which run deep and the roots of which can only be fully understood by turning to philosophy (not the "why are we here" or "what is the meaning of life" type of philosophy but the type which enquires in to the nature of knowledge itself and of what we can know (epistemology) and the nature of the individual mind in relation to social groups and the "world out there" (ontology).
And you have fun PLAYING at project management. Good luck, you’ll need it.
Saving Changes...
“Are you saying that it should (be) up to the PM to determine the deliverables needed and the methods to complete them?” Yes, yes yes a million times YES! Each project is unique and competent action is based on responding to the situation at hand and acting in a way which is relevant to that situation, CATEGORICALLY NOT following the lifecycle or techniques in some “best practice” which can only lead to incompetent action.
Eric, I would like to propose a definition of incompetent action.
I define incompetence as the inability to produce the correct high quality work product in a timely fashion.
By this definition “best practices” neither offer a solution to nor increase the likely hood of incompetence. They are simply tools in a person’s tool box.
By stating, “CATEGORICALLY NOT following the lifecycle or techniques in some ‘best practice’” it comes across as if you are saying, throw all your tools out. However, earlier in your post you said, “I am NOT ‘anti-process, anti-project management, and anti-management’”. What I hear you saying is that standing behind method or process to justify incompetence is as big a failure as having no tools at all. Am I correct in that assessment?
The incompetence that stems from having no tools at all is equally frustrating to me as those who defend incompetence with process. I can find no discernable element to determine which is worse.
What I read into what your saying is that the PMI and other institutions have pitched their tools as the solution to incompetence. Am I correct in that assessment?
I propose that the solution to incompetence is not found through process but through personal capability development and therefore inclusion of the PMI promoted tools has nearly no impact on my competence either way.
Rather than go on I’ll stop and look forward to responses to this post.
"standing behind method or process to justify incompetence is as big a failure as having no tools at all." "What I read into what your saying is that the PMI and other institutions have pitched their tools as the solution to incompetence. Am I correct in that assessment?" I'm not sure that I specifically made these points but I wouldn’t disagree with them. "I propose that the solution to incompetence is not found through process but through personal capability development and therefore inclusion of the PMI promoted tools has nearly no impact on my competence either way." I definitely agree with you that organisations which want to be able to do projects well need to develop "personal capability" in their PMs (among other things) and that is developed through experience and education (development of the mind and individual) NOT training them like monkeys to follow some process (i.e. what PMI would call "education"). Re: "inclusion of the PMI promoted tools has nearly no impact on my competence either way." My experience is that training (brainwashing) people with the PMI tools tends to lead to incompetent action. Eric http://pmsucks.blogspot.com/ Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Eric, I have enjoyed your posts and agree with much of what you say as a result of witnessing it first hand. I am the "beaucratic moron" that manages our PMO and project managers and I am also responsible for our organization's processes, best practices, and personnel skills development program. If you have a moment, I would like your advice. You mention per your post below, "the solution to incompetence is not found through process but through personal capability development." What approach would you recommend to me as the PMO manager to use to manage the PMO and my project managers? I agree with what you have said, but I am not comfortable letting 15 PMs just do things their own way exercising their own level of personal capability wuthout an agreed to "framework, approach, policy, etc" all of which suggest a "process" to me. And even if I could, my management wouldn't. So, can you suggest an approach? How are things done in your organization? Saving Changes...
There are a few answers to that. Here is the 1st in a series....
Cutting Up An Ox
Prince Wen Hui's cook
Was cutting up an ox
Out went a hand,
Down went a shoulder,
He planted a foot,
He pressed with a knee,
The ox fell apart
With a whisper,
The bright cleaver murmured
Like a gentle wind.
Rhythm! Timing!
Like a sacred dance,
Like "The Mulberry Grove,"
Like ancient harmonies!
"Good work!" the Prince exclaimed,
"Your method is faultless!"
"Method?" said the cook
Laying aside his cleaver,
"What I follow is Tao
Beyond all methods!
"When I first begain
To cut up oxen
I would see before me
The whole ox
All in one mass.
"After three years
I no longer saw this mass.
I saw the distinctions.
"But now, I see nothing
With the eye. My whole being
Apprehends.
My senses are idle. The spirit
Free to work without plan
Follows its own instinct
Guided by natural line,
By the secret opening, the hidden space,
My cleaver finds its own way.
I cut through no joint, chop no bone.
"A good cook needs a new chopper
Once a year -- he cuts.
A poor cook needs a new one
Every month -- he hacks!
"I have used this same cleaver
Nineteen years.
It has cut up
A thousand oxen.
Its edge is as keen
As if newly sharpened.
"There are spaces in the joints;
The blade is thin and keen:
When this thinness
Finds that space
There is all the room you need!
It goes like a breeze!
Hense I have this cleaver nineteen years
As if newly sharpened!
"True, there are sometimes
Tough joints. I feel them coming,
I slow down, I watch closely,
Hold back, barely move the blade,
And whump! the part falls away
Landing like a clod of earth.
"Then I withdraw the blade,
I stand still
And let the joy of the work
Sink in.
I clean the blade
And put it away."
Prince Wen Hui said,
"This is it! My cook has shown me
How I ought to live
My own life!"
Before the 2nd in series are you willing to set aside your prejudices? To see anew? To bring a "beginners mind"?
BEGINNERS MIND: The idea of beginners mind is that you take all of the things you think you know--all of your brilliant opinions, all of your reason and logic, even your prejudgement, assumptions, pre-cherished beliefs--and you put all this stuff on the shelf for awhile. (It will all still be there safe and sound when you get back!)
BEGINNERS MIND: This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything (something new or something seen anew); it is open to anything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the "expert's" mind there are few. . . .
(note: expert is used in the derogatory sense here)
Most importantly are you willing to give up of the notion of a universal process to be followed and to move the emphasis to agree that competent action is unique to the context and the individuals participating, much of which is emergent and not reducible to recipe (method)?
[Apologies to anyone still reading, serious posts will be resumed as soon as possible!]
[PS - Thanks to David Schmaltz from whom I nicked much of the last paragraph. Definitions of “beginners mind” also nicked off the Internet] Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Eric, I don't understand your response. By the way, I like your "Cutting Up An Ox" story. I agree with you. So how do we get everybody to cut the ox like the good cook, rather than hack like the bad cook. I am a PMO manager and I would like you to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Can you simply tell me (without anecdotes) your approach to how you think or would like a project organization to be managed and/or how your organization does it? Or, if you were named PMO manager tomorrow, what would you do? Saving Changes...
"This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."
