ActionMint Post: Optimism, Pessimism and Project Management

In addition to my own posts, I also write for ActionMint an authority on cloud-based project management. This article focuses on the uses of optimism and pessimism in calculating accurate task durations, and how this technique grew from the Polaris Missile project during the Cold War. Here is an excerpt:

Optimism tends to make people envision time-lines, budgets and end results the way they hope things will turn out, which seldom ever happens. That is what the critical path is all about: it identifies the absolute shortest period of time that a project could take if everything works out the way we hope it will and if we all cross our fingers and toes. Every project manager should take care to identify the critical path, of course, and then re-design his/her project plan to get off the critical path by squeezing in extra time between tasks for the inevitable delays and failures to come. Because, yes, stuff happens.

To read the full post, please visit ActionMint’s blog, “The Daily Mint,” here.