Rich, B.R. and Janos, Y., Skunk Works, Little Brown and Company, New York, 1994

I have had this book in my library for quite some time and although I've browsed it before, I recently had the opportunity to actually read it. Why I didn't read it earlier, I just don't know because it is just so full of stories and wisdom on many levels.

For those who don't know - the Skunk Works were (are still?) a top secret Lockheed shop for the design, development and manufacture of advanced and innovative aerospace systems. If U2, SR-71 Blackbird and stealth planes mean anything to you - then this book tells their story.

I have a number of skills in a number of areas and have a few topics around which I can talk for 40 mins or 1-2 days!! You may consider them to be a bit eclectic and not really connected .... but in fact they are all connected through my project management, business investment and general management experience. All of them are well grounded in my personal journey ....good and bad!

I am mostly engaged through my consultancy firm HolisTech® Pty Ltd or my investment firm Padden Industries Pty Ltd, but I do have relationships with companies and businesses big and small through which I sometimes sub-contract.

Humphrey, Watts, S., Winning with Software: An Executive Strategy, Addison-Wesley, Boston, 2002

The message here is that if you wish to develop good software, particularly of any significant size, you need a robust process and a team of disciplined programmers/engineers. The operative words here are robust and disciplined. These two terms, particularly the discipline one, resonate particularly well with me, because one of the significant causes of a problem project is the lack of discipline to follow a defined process. The further message is that "quality counts" - even more so than schedule. This is particularly relevant to any business that uses software.

This concept can be viewed another way - as a chronology or evolution of systems. A system enters its life at some point in time. In the below diagram some have begun their life prior to say, 2006. Others entered their life after 2006.

You will also note that the system will commence life as being in use (green), then at some point start to degrade (yellow), then become critically degraded (light red), until finally it is obsolete (red).

Many project management books and texts (and perhaps blogs) start with a definition of a project. Or if not, it is certainly in there shortly into the book. But why is that?

Well I guess they all need to put a boundary around what they are talking about, but also because it is pretty useful leading into the wider part of the text.

I am no different in that sense because I do need to answer that question "What is a Project?". But I think what I am about to say is different because the way I define a project is different to what you might find in the more traditional texts.

So ... what is a project?

The other issue I have with project management in general is that there is no universal model that incorporates different ways of doing things depending on the situation.

For example, at a macro level, there is an inability for PMBOK and PRINCE2 to accommodate the agile methods. To me this means that the good points from the agile methods are not necessarily easily slotted into a non-software project. Indeed, the reverse can be true too.

I am exploring a number of concepts under an eclectic collection of
subject areas. I am also exploring some of these in my blog about small
and medium enterprises and micro-businesses at Lukim All. Undoubtedly, I will add to these in time.

Formal. Pat is a very experienced program and project manager with a strong academic background in the profession which includes post graduate project management qualifications. He has a significant and current consulting and business background with a particular strength in communicating complex concepts in simple and pithy ways including discussions, presentations, blogs and papers.

Informal. I am the normal family man - wife and two daughters, two dogs (german shepherd and golden retriever - stupid and cupid as the kids call them!), a stack of frogs in the gardne and a visiting family of magpies (a native Australian bird that is quite at home in the urban environment).

I am undertaking a Doctorate in Project Management at the RMIT
University in Melbourne, Australia (although I won't start it again
until 2010).

What will my thesis be about? Well at this stage I am keen on pursuing
a theme around using what I call the Knowledge Level of Maturity (KLOM)
as it relates to project management.