Category: Surviving Complexity

Latest column: IT project metrics, part 3 »

My newest Baseline column is up: “Lies, Damned Lies, and Project Metrics (part 3)“. In it, I wrap up my discussion on IT project metrics, outlining a possible approach using instrumentation and heuristics.  Go check it out.  ..bruce..

Latest column: more on metrics »

My newest Baseline column is up: “Lies, Damned Lies, and Project Metrics (part 2)“. In it, I talk about why it’s so hard to apply metrics to IT project management and begin to suggest an approach.  Go check it out.  ..bruce..

New column for Ziff Davis: “Surviving Complexity” »

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m writing a book called Surviving Complexity. Many of my posts here at this website have adapted from materials I’m writing for that book.
Well, now I’ve been hired by Ziff Davis Enterprises to write a weekly column on IT Management for the online version of Baseline. That column [...]

The Arc of Engineering »

[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).]
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.
– William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii.
I have observed a pattern (or anti-pattern) in IT engineering [...]

The Wetware Crisis: All Our Sins Remembered - Intro »

[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).]
Humanity has been developing information technology for half a century. That experience has taught us this unpleasant truth: virtually every information technology project above a certain size or complexity is significantly late and over budget or fails altogether; those that don’t fail [...]