'Earned Value' is used generally. Perhaps, one might argue for another term which may come about at some point. In the meantime, those who deal with projects, and funding such, have grappled with the issues for years. In many cases, there have been advances in planning well such that things come about as planned. But, it is a known fact that projects and products mostly don't follow plan. There are good reasons for this.
T-issues are one factor. Too, the same abstraction-phile attitude mentioned throughout this, and the related, blogs need, to be understood better, not that plenty haven't spent oodles of time and energy on the issues.
So, if the pros have trouble, what chance does the common person have? Well, it's probably true for some that the issues dissolve, for those in power namely. Of course, many succeed despite not being in power (this is another t-issue, yes truth engines). Others, who are driven by external circumstances, are not so adept, nor can they be it could very well be argued.
Why, then, this effort and focus? How 'oops' are handled is key to the subject. It just happens that that which is covered by 'earned value' is another key factor (as, loops and hoops). Itemizing and discussing the others, over time, will be apropos.
As an aside, we will re-look at IQ and PIQ and other types (IQ and more, plus mis-measure).
But, the real core of the issue is that we only have 20-20 ex post facto vision. And, some would argue that we don't even have that. The phenomenon of differing eye witness accounts is the best example. Our attempts at removing this problem with reductionists' techniques, mathematics, and computation will not remove the basis cause. No, it's not even a people issue.
The future is, in a sense, undecidable, in many different ways, despite attempts at regimes that attempt definition of best practices, of risk reduction (oh, yes, the financial guys have shown us what a charade this is!), method optimization, and a number of other disciplines. Fortunately, there are glimmers of light, such as fuzzy methods, chaos engineering, and a few other forward-thinking attempts at control.
Ah yes, look at control theory (for instance, try IEEE Control Systems Society) whose domain is where these issues, in part, lie; it's a century-old plus field of study, yet there is no thought of complete understanding of the issues nor of utmost predictability.
Granted we can compute things like orbits, such that pinpointing things like eclipses is a common affair (complicated, though it is), but what will next week's weather be? Even without our (meaning the human race's) influence, would weather forecasting be any easier? Oh, yes, who would be here to observe?
So, there is a lot on the plate. One thing to do will be to sync the two views: 7oops7 and Truth Engineering.
Remarks:
09/09/09 -- We'll need to look at UUUN, as a framework, for assessing planning and reporting schemes for program management. Too, accepting this type of uncertainty into the genre is not counterproductive.
09/03/2009 -- Computational foci raise miraculous need. Yes, we need to talk NP and more.
09/02/2009 -- Lets face it, folks, undecidability needs to be discussed and adopted in any complex situational setting, especially if computers are involved. Only hubris pushes us to make loud exclamations about what we're going to do in the future.
07/14/2009 -- Nope, confounding continues.
06/25/2009 -- Yes, this is one of 5 issues.
05/18/2009 -- Testing in flight is within sight.
Modified: 09/00/2009
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