Monthly Archives: December 2013

#32 – RISK & QUALITY: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES – T. DAN NELSON

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T. Dan Nelson - Screen Shot 2013-09-06 at 8.16.28 PMI believe that risk and quality will never resolve, one into the other. Though they may be related, each will always have its own identity and purpose.

PURPOSE OF RISK MANAGEMENT
The purpose of risk management is not, and should not be, to manage quality.  Quality should not be driven by risk.  Of course, risk as it pertains to quality must be recognized and adequately managed by successful organizations, or they would not be successful.  Were risk not being managed to some degree to ensure delivery of quality product, it seems an organization would not develop to the point of needing enterprise-wide risk management. If poor quality puts an organization out of business, there would be no business. Continue reading →

#32 – RISK ANALYSIS AND MODELING OF LAWS – CAPERS JONES

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Capers Jones pixThe structural methods used by the Rhode Island General Assembly for proposing and passing laws are chaotic and unprofessional.

Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union (US), but the legislature proposes more bills than any other state including New York and California. The legislature is the most expensive in the United States.  It is also one of the largest on a per-capita basis except for sparsely populated states such as Alaska.  Perhaps 2,200 bills per year are proposed, but only a few hundred are passed.  As a result, many bills are never even read before voting.  Hundreds more bills are lost somewhere in committees for further study. Continue reading →

#32 – TIME: A RISK SOURCE! – UMBERTO TUNESI

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Umberto Tunesi pixWe’re obsessed with Time.

Songs and literature don’t forget to remind us that Time goes by, that Time is the key measure of almost everything, even of apparently very solid, indestructible structures as concrete walls.

There’s a key question about Time, which is that we know Time’s effects but – as for many other of nature’s processes – we neither know nor understand Time’s rules. Continue reading →

#32 – HEALTHCARE.GOV: HOW SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT RISK WAS NOT MANAGED – GARY GACK

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GG-photo-20100224There’s a lot we don’t yet know about this classic disaster, but nonetheless it is not too early to examine several obvious flaws in the approach. Top software professionals knew at the outset of various measures that would have saved a lot of expense and embarrassment, but were not applied.  It seems clear this project was “managed” by comparative amateurs clearly not up to the management challenge. This effort did not fail for technical reasons – virtually all of the issues that have arisen were foreseeable and preventable. Continue reading →

#32 – THE RISK OF KNOWING TOO MUCH – MARK MOORE

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Mark MooreI had a similar thought about two completely different things recently.  The first is merely an example from life – its’ one of those things that you really don’t want to think about and if you can avoid knowing it at all (which means you should skip the next paragraph) that’s probably a good thing.

The second comes from material I’ve been preparing to teach a class on testing.  But, I don’t want to get ahead of myself …

So,is it possible to know too much and does that knowledge put you at risk or at least a disadvantage? Continue reading →