We’re all gonna die. We’re all gonna die. Call it entropy. Call it the Pareto principle.  80 percent of everything is shit.

Projects are no different. The majority are not going to deliver any value. Never mind that they are going to go over budget and deadline while still not delivering said value.

Let’s get into defining value later. Because really, no one wants to touch that monster. Let’s start with the good old classics. PMI has a handy list of magic bullets  to take the pain away.

• Recruit and maintain adequate technical and non-technical resource skills
• Manage the allocation of scarce resources
• Define and collect operational metrics to support project and stakeholders decision making
• Promote efficient and effective communications
• Select and utilize technology related tools

In short terms, one can apply this methodology while singing “I want to ride my Waterfall, I want to ride my faaal!”. Because it sure appears to be good old classic waterfall model development.

We’re in IT. We cannot recruit “adequate technical skills”. It doesn’t work for google. The guy they paid hundreds of millions a couple of years back as benefits for exemplary service? They’re trying to send him to jail now. For trade secrets theft.

What makes us think we can do better?

With customer fit development ( agile and lots of other frameworks ) having a slightly more realistic approach, we are going to dive into the basic atoms that make up successful projects in future posts.