tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80503551706110503162012-01-31T19:59:25.373-08:00Ideas from Project Management, that can apply to life inside and outside of projects. This doesn't have too much to do with the Critical Chain, but I really liked that title.Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.comBlogger511100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-23175945624791665502011-03-27T18:50:00.000-07:002011-03-27T18:52:27.356-07:00

(Posted on the LiquidPlanner blog on 3/24/11)I walked into my favorite hardware store last week to pick up something fairly small and obscure. It's one of those typical Mom & Pop stores, with every available inch of the walls covered with stuff. Everything from power tools to lint traps...you name it and they have it (in a very small space of course). I was looking for those little plastic things

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-84846943883997461952010-12-04T19:31:00.000-08:002010-12-04T19:33:25.563-08:00

If you haven't already discovered the most clever and addictive mobile game, Angry Birds, I suggest checking it out. The movie really tells the story best, but if you don't have the time to watch it, it's about launching birds at pigs. It's not only a physics-lovers dream; there are also some valuable project management lessons to be learned from the game.Read more on the LiquidPlanner blog...

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-48962788444741700472010-11-09T19:36:00.000-08:002010-11-09T19:38:03.433-08:00

“Just a minute!”“OK! In a sec...”“We’ll be done in a bit!”How many times have you heard yourself say one of those phrases? How many times have they been said to you? If you’re a parent, then you probably find yourself saying them least a few times a day. And you probably learned them from your parents.The real question is though, how many times were you accurate with that statement? Did you

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-43036057909287285442010-10-14T20:30:00.001-07:002010-10-14T20:32:07.764-07:00

My latest posts on the LiquidPlanner blog -In Project Estimation, "Guess" is a 4-Letter WordWhat's Your Distraction Factor?Check them out if you'd like!

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-64305963095672373562010-07-20T19:45:00.000-07:002010-08-01T19:26:21.328-07:00

Next in my little battle for the title of the best project management tool, I took a look at Wrike and compared it to LiquidPlanner. If you’ve read any of my posts before you know that the battle is a little uneven, I am clearly biased towards LiquidPlanner but I do try to take a fair look at each tool. I also like to keep this as a friendly forum for discussion, so if anyone out there from Wrike

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-77240456295609183792010-06-24T14:34:00.000-07:002010-06-29T19:47:22.249-07:00

I spotted this interesting post by Dennis Stevenson titled "Why would you abandon e-mail for Streaming tools?", which was a reaction to an article by Stowe Boyd "The Business Case For Streams versus Email". Both are worth a read, and got me thinking about how we communicate and how our messages are received (or not received) by our team. The debate here is stream (public post on shared workspace,

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-72980720172422209612010-05-15T19:39:00.000-07:002010-05-16T19:24:28.588-07:00

This brings back somewhat painful memories of a large project post-mortem where the CEO continually asked "Well, was there a project plan?" (and didn't ask anything else). In this specific case, there was a decent project plan, but so many other things (that the CEO chose not to acknowledge) went wrong that the project plan was not able to salvage the project.Jim Vaughan, in the IT Project

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-65975083419490209002010-04-29T22:51:00.000-07:002010-08-01T19:26:42.371-07:00

Since I've been serving proudly as the LiquidPlanner Social Media Evangelist for almost a year now, I wanted to take some more time to evaluate other online project management tools and get a better understanding of what the competition is like in the space. This post will not be another comparison of Basecamp, I think I've made it pretty clear that Basecamp shouldn't even really be called a

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-36762523504941250962010-04-19T17:45:00.001-07:002010-04-19T17:54:43.914-07:00

(This was originally posted on Horn Group's Brass Tacks)Last week I went to the first FAILfaire NYC, organized by MobileActive.org. I was first turned on to the event when I saw a tweet about it from another project manager that I’m connected with through the “Project Managers on Twitter” (#PMOT) group. Now, failure is nothing new to project managers, any quick skim through the #PMOT feed on a

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-57584291398071226212010-03-16T19:50:00.000-07:002010-03-16T20:26:13.512-07:00

Was picking up my kids at their after-school daycare early this evening, when I noticed a sign on their wall. It was titled "Emergency Response" and had a list of awful things that you'd never want to have happen to your kid, and how to handle them. My guess is that there is a state law that if a daycare that wants to maintain certification it needs to have a sign posted publicly that details

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-34722936461127993302010-02-21T17:57:00.000-08:002010-08-01T19:27:03.408-07:00

Last spring I wrote up a comparison of Basecamp and LiquidPlanner. I think I'm pretty open on this space about my feelings for LiquidPlanner but I think the comparison was pretty fair nonetheless. I started to realize even then that I'd need to do a followup post since there were so many new features in the LiquidPlanner pipeline. And, to Basecamp's credit, they have also launched new features

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-8100434546148999342010-02-11T19:44:00.000-08:002010-02-11T19:50:44.470-08:00

Was talking with someone a few days ago, and surprised to discover that we both took the same career path. He was also a front-end web developer for a number of years, then went into web project management. The only difference was after 2-3 years he dropped project management and went back to doing web programming. I asked him why he stopped and his answer was, "I was tired of getting on people

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-43085051968490215532010-02-03T19:41:00.000-08:002010-02-07T17:58:13.230-08:00

I remember way back in 1999, when I was filling out my first time sheets as a web programmer. We filled them out on on excel and sent them to our boss at the end of each week. I didn't really see the full value of tracking time, and jokingly asked my coworkers if I should be recording time that I am in the bathroom, etc. Since then not only have I had an opportunity to use a few different time

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-37435444789652775102010-01-10T11:58:00.000-08:002010-01-10T12:21:30.762-08:00

I don't remember reading this book as a child, but this was one of my husband's favorites so it came along with a batch of books that his parents saved for him. We've enjoyed reading it to our kids, and I think there are some good lessons here that can be applied to project communication.To summarize, a mosquito brags to an iguana that he spied a farmer digging yams as big as mosquitoes. The

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-39826879587704025862009-12-02T19:18:00.000-08:002009-12-02T19:57:48.516-08:00

I am proud to say that my daughters are not only into princesses, fairies, and everything pink and sparkly. They are also fans of the stereotypically "boyish" characters, like Spongebob Squarepants, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Bob the Builder. I've found that there are some good lessons in project management that can be learned from the Bob the Builder that we all know, and the tweaks that our

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-60072521808663176462009-09-30T19:51:00.000-07:002009-09-30T19:55:09.395-07:00

Just contributed to LiquidPlanner's "Home on the Range" blog, with a post titled "Project Management Battle of the Sexes".This past July, the New York Times ran the article, “No Doubts: Women are Better Managers.” It was an interview with Carol Smith, SVP and Chief Brand Officer for the Elle Group, the media company. She explained what she does to be a great manager and why women will always be

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-23986762421387443042009-08-10T19:17:00.000-07:002009-08-10T20:14:13.461-07:00

Have you ever felt alone, completely helpless, struggling with everything around you knowing that you can't do a thing to make it any better?No, this is not a commercial for a Prozac, it's a story about how I got caught at an incredibly inefficient process at an IKEA one day and almost lost it. I was working on a bunk bed project, had bought a used IKEA bunk bed for my 4 year old and discovered

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-58555993513553088242009-07-08T19:42:00.000-07:002009-07-08T20:08:11.620-07:00

We watched a lot of Thomas & Friends over the holiday weekend (yes, with my kids...wow, that joke never gets old). Since I don't watch the show regularly (not kidding here) I was surprised to learn about how many different trains there were. I always heard about 'Thomas the Train" and didn't hear much about his other friends. Anyway, one of the episodes featured Edward, who had to take over

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-6355720903881697542009-06-10T18:18:00.000-07:002009-06-10T18:57:41.426-07:00

Just got a shipment of old school children's books from my in-laws a few weeks ago (yes, we have kids, I don't just read kid's books for fun or blog material). One of the books is "The Very Worried Walrus", by Richard Hefter. This was one of my husband's favorites, but I had never read it before. So, when I read it to my daughters for the first time, it got me thinking about Risk

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-80457132276756337062009-06-05T10:56:00.000-07:002009-06-05T11:42:58.278-07:00

Ok, so I already have that Eminem song in my head and it will be in there for the rest of the day I'm sure. If the least I can do is get that song in your head, than I've accomplished something. But, what this is really about is having an open discussion about all things project management, without the nuisance of spam or other unwanted discussion. I started doing 'Social Media Evangelism' for

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-31394851660499496382009-05-19T20:01:00.000-07:002011-06-11T20:41:53.153-07:00

I think I've found my new purpose in life. Forget doing good in the world, raising healthy and happy children, making a positive impact in my community....I've become obsessed with project management tools. Granted I don't exactly have days, weeks and months of extra time to spend sampling all of them, and there are a LOT of them. But, I like that I've been able to work with a few and research

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-73354451890565193482009-05-01T11:22:00.000-07:002009-05-01T14:44:40.670-07:00

Don't worry, this post is appropriate for children...It all began about a year and a half ago, when I got slammed by the boss for a web project that was about to enter the development phase and was being projected by the programmers to take about double the amount of time that it was originally estimated. I kept my head up and went back to look more closely at the original estimate and what we

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-47138408748266509522009-04-24T07:53:00.000-07:002009-04-24T07:55:52.326-07:00

It's still not official yet, but people are talking about it! See my interview on the "Stepping into Project Management" blog. Thanks Soma B!

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-36669968188650278862009-04-19T19:05:00.000-07:002009-04-19T20:23:32.893-07:00

Well, it's not official yet. But, the discussion has begun, and what better place than the Project Managers on Twitter (#PMOT) group. This has become my new favorite go-to place for the latest ideas, thoughts, and link sharing of all things project management. The group is growing, tweets becoming more frequent. If you're not sure what this hashtag thing is all about, at least for the project

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-65651864245358760452009-03-31T18:41:00.000-07:002009-03-31T18:44:32.740-07:00

The importance of gathering, defining and confirming project requirements, and the risks involved with making changes later in the project. Read more about it...here:"If you don't have time to do it right, when do you have time to do it over?"

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-8238815690633750032009-03-22T18:51:00.000-07:002009-03-22T19:41:19.854-07:00

I was at the Children's Place the other night, grabbing some new footed pajamas for my 2 year old, when I found an interesting parallel between clothes shopping and locking down the requirements in a project. I had just been working on requirements earlier that day, and trying to schedule a meeting with stakeholders to review and sign off on requirements. So, what can I say, I had requirements on

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-16819984690896132822009-03-14T20:01:00.000-07:002009-03-14T21:01:15.974-07:00

I debated posting this picture on the interwebs, I mean it's not something I would toss right up on Facebook or anything. I don't consider myself the most photogenic person, but this one is pretty embarrassing. But, I'm going to do it, will make this big sacrifice for my blog. That's how much you mean to me... blog.Anyway, what's the picture all about anyway? This picture was taken in the summer

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-85316602084949418222009-02-14T19:57:00.000-08:002009-02-14T20:50:03.452-08:00

I'm brushing my older daughter's hair one night (well, this happens on most nights) and even though I try to be gentle and use that spray in conditioner, she still winces and cries "ouchie" at each stroke. I'm tired and the only response I can give her is "We're almost done!" Same coaching technique I use when I'm clipping my kids toenails, walking with them somewhere in bad weather, or doing any

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-36765021629696292672009-01-26T18:29:00.000-08:002009-01-26T19:28:22.081-08:00

I run a youth group a couple weekends a month. It feeds the part of me that worked at overnight camp for 6 years through and after college and still enjoys informal education and just doing good stuff with teenagers. And I'm sure there are some parallels between running a teen youth group and managing projects, but that's not what this post is about.This past Saturday night I had a program with

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-17980741638108036812009-01-15T19:53:00.000-08:002009-01-15T19:55:46.377-08:00

Yes, I'm blogging around these days... this one isn't exactly about project management, but touches a bit on the poor management of a process.It's the therapists that made me crazy... When my 4-year-old was younger, she would call balloon "a-boon", balloons "buna", and yellow "wellow". All kids do have cute ways of saying things, when they are still figuring out how to put the sounds together.

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-80903862830562261532009-01-14T07:14:00.000-08:002009-01-14T07:17:56.652-08:00

Getting the Word Out, about the After School Art Class and Project TasksI’ve been thinking a lot about communication lately, both because I’m a project manager and well…that’s what project managers are supposed to do, and because I’ve had my share of frustration with my older daughter’s preschool and their process of sharing information. It’s funny to me that professionally I try to be completely

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-67863146004316393372009-01-10T20:03:00.000-08:002009-01-11T04:50:03.932-08:00

I read kids books a lot...to my kids of course. I've also been on a software/project management book reading kick lately, but more about that in a minute. Tonight I was reading Amelia Bedelia to my 4-year-old and it got me thinking about something else I had just read in Steve McConnell's Rapid Development this week. So, for those who may not know, the Amelia Bedelia series is about Amelia

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-41235292612739539002008-12-16T20:04:00.000-08:002008-12-16T20:42:32.082-08:00

I was a goalkeeper on my soccer team from about 8 years old through college. I didn't always like being the goalkeeper, but my coaches and teammates always liked putting me in goal anyway. It was stressful, nerve-wracking, and either very boring or way too exciting. Sure, sometimes I had my hero moments when I made a really great save, but other times I messed up and let a goal through that

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-62902190256457236982008-12-02T19:56:00.000-08:002008-12-02T20:38:24.273-08:00

I continue to be amazed by the processes used at my older daughter's school. I have no doubt that they are doing an exceptional job teaching her and providing her with all of the tools she will need (and in the end that's what's most important anyway), but sortof just like one of the administrators put it to me a couple weeks back, when referring to technology "it's like the new immigrants are

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-70357854223942936602008-11-16T19:52:00.000-08:002008-11-17T19:57:23.877-08:00

A few months ago I posted about the necessity of including uncertainty in estimates, for software building and todder shuffling in the morning (originally posted on the Flightpath blog and then reposted here). I've realized over the last few weeks that this morning routine is not just a matter of making sure there is enough padding in the schedule, but also includes exercises in risk management,

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-32464283121459042702008-11-02T18:24:00.000-08:002008-11-02T19:05:13.415-08:00

I just read a great post on the pm411.org site, titled "Avoid the Same Old Mistakes by Focusing on Lessons Learned". The guest blogger is Duncan Haughly, and he writes about the importance of taking the time to review the good and bad of past projects and learn from them. He also discusses how organizations can create a culture "where people not only take the trouble to learn from past projects,

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-23190143134049978932008-10-31T07:08:00.000-07:002008-10-31T07:10:06.857-07:00

Check it out here..."Being a Working Mom can (sometimes) have its perks"

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-43133238590675678822008-10-25T20:02:00.000-07:002008-10-25T20:56:43.202-07:00

I'm lousy when it comes to cooking & baking. I won't go into the stories of muffins gone wrong, chicken not cooked right, even hard boiled eggs not really hard. Thankfully my husband does the cooking and he's great at it. I'm the one who builds the furniture, deals with home repairs/renovations (not always so well), and smashes front 'yard' concrete with a sledgehammer so that we can make way for

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-7460046709775183442008-10-15T20:27:00.000-07:002008-10-18T18:49:55.899-07:00

Last week I was taking my younger daughter to daycare and decided that since I had extra time that I would let my younger daughter walk on her own rather than strap her into my back carrier. She'll be 2 in December and seems like all she wants to do these days is walk (she was a late walker so she must be making up for lost time). She was thrilled that I let her walk and loved the morning stroll.

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-45202141552589707262008-10-06T18:39:00.000-07:002008-10-06T20:04:26.055-07:00

So, without going into too much of the details, my husband and I knew that we liked the name "Lila Ruth" for our daughter who was born in December 2006. So, when it came time to fill out the paperwork in the hospital, I realized we never discussed how we wanted to spell her name. I liked "Lilah", but I figured since my husband wasn't in the room at the time I should give him a call and see if he

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-26832284811945639572008-09-27T18:36:00.000-07:002008-09-27T19:17:45.564-07:00

Yesterday I was working at the computer and keeping an eye on my almost 4 year old as she was playing nearby in the same room. She needed to take a potty break and is at the *fun* stage where even though she can do the whole business independantly, if I'm around she wants me to stay in the bathroom with her and help out, etc. I know, I know...I should cherish these moments, and I'll regret not

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-56491974276272700782008-09-10T19:56:00.000-07:002008-09-11T18:49:27.094-07:00

Maybe I'm just spoiled by all of the technology that I see and use around me, I work in the technology field after all. Words like RSS, social networking, blogs, email, text messaging, and others are a part of the daily vocabulary where I am each day. And when I get home at night, I get the time to catch up on all of the blogs, feeds, social network site activity, etc. (after the kids are asleep

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-7850490761698684312008-08-21T20:04:00.000-07:002008-08-21T21:58:59.994-07:00

I am really enjoying reading the 'Slack' book by Tom Demarco (Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency). It's setting in enough that I am pressuring myself to not do real work right now and write something for the blog instead. He makes many great points, and ones that I've already been trying to push on my colleagues (for example, by ordering one of the support

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-22089084569531429672008-08-04T19:48:00.000-07:002010-03-24T08:09:10.850-07:00

This latest is nothing about adventures with contracters, but stuff about bugs that's been floating around my head for a while and wanted to get it all written down...To Catch a Bug: Quality Assurance at all Stages of the Project

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-13150633863906598362008-07-27T18:53:00.000-07:002008-07-27T20:11:37.792-07:00

I'll probably come up with a couple more posts about my contracter before this is all over, he's finally back in touch and doing some work for us. It's always interesting having him around, especially when I can reflect on how work we do with him can relate to good or really bad project management.This time I might as well take the blame.We asked Fernando to install two wall unit air conditioners

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-321464653468280172008-07-08T06:50:00.000-07:002008-07-10T19:56:19.988-07:00

Anyone who's run a project with an outside vendor or freelance, contract worker, or third party application knows that it's best to plan alot of buffer into the schedule because anything that could go wrong, probably will. I've learned this the hard way a couple times, from communication breakdown, to technical difficulties, to technical difficulties caused by communication breakdown. It would be

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-45716636992779316552008-07-01T20:19:00.000-07:002008-07-01T21:08:44.443-07:00

Well, let me preface all this by saying that my contractor Fernando is the most wonderful person in the world, and we have worked with him for years now and (almost) never regretted it. He's bent over backwards for us when we really needed him, rushing to finish up our bathroom renovations in our old apartment so that when I was coming home from the hospitol with my first child I could have a

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-38115996964921301752008-06-16T19:44:00.000-07:002008-06-23T20:15:05.901-07:00

Caution: If you have a weak stomach and don’t like reading about baby puke and quick project decisions, you might not want to continue reading.So, I guess my 18 month old daughter doesn’t like my driving. Since we don’t own a car and just rent a few times a year, her body probably isn’t prepared for the shock of it all. Regardless of how and why it happened, she had an unfortunate up-chuck while

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-63935407812369890772008-06-05T20:46:00.000-07:002008-06-05T21:11:03.659-07:00

I walked past a crane yesterday. I have to say, being New Yorker and hearing a little too regularly about the construction accidents that have been happening, makes me not want to walk so close to those cranes.There were a few construction accidents earlier this spring, one of them involved a crane that was improperly secured to a building, falling onto a neighboring building. Very recently, a

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-52341193496162605672008-06-03T18:24:00.000-07:002008-06-03T18:29:48.715-07:00

I just finished a great book, titled "Waltzing with Bears, Managing Risk on Software Projects" by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. Risk is something we all deal with in our day to day lives, and probably don’t deal with enough in our professional work. The authors open with the idea that if a project doesn’t have any risk to it, it’s just not worth taking. This notion is especially applicable to

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8050355170611050316.post-40168767126711062512008-06-03T18:04:00.001-07:002010-01-01T12:48:18.928-08:00

Early in a project, so many of the specific details of the nature of the software being built, specific requirements, project plan and staffing details are all very unclear. Because there are so many variables early on in the project, it is crucial to include a large degree of uncertainty or variability in the project estimate. This is not about being purposely misleading or avoiding commitment

Dinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12732053978051576657noreply@blogger.com0