Managing the Measures of Effectiveness and Performance are the Basis of All Project and Product Success

There are many approaches to managing the development of products and services. The spectrum of these approaches ranges from Agile to Formal step-wise process.

By the way, waterfall was removed from DoD 5000.02 in 2013, and is code for bad management. So when agilest use Waterfall, they're tilting at windmills.

But good project and program management goes back to the Egyptians and the pyramids. A more recent example of proper program management can be found with the Wright Brothers.

After their first powered flights in 1903, they began to develop their experimental aircraft into a marketable product. By 1905 they had the basis of a "practical flying machine." Other experimenters learned of their work and begin to build on their success.

By 1906, others pilots were making tentative hops in uncontrollable aircraft. By 1909, after watching the Wrights' flying demonstrations, they grasped the brilliance and necessity of three-axis aerodynamic control. The performance of their aircraft quickly caught up to and then surpassed Wright Flyers. The capabilities of and the uses for aircraft expanded as designers and pilots introduced floatplanes, flying boats, passenger aircraft, observation platforms fitted with radios and wireless telegraphs, fighters, and bombers. [1]

As World War I approached, aircraft became an essential part of war and peace. In 1907, the US Army renewed its interest in the Wright Brothers. The Board of Ordnance and Fortification and the U.S. Signal Corps announced an advertisement for bids to construct an airplane. [3] However, the design and performance specifications were such that the Wrights were the only viable bidder. A price of $25,000 was set for the brothers’ airplane if they could meet the performance criteria in actual flight trials.

These flight trials were scheduled for late summer 1908 at Fort Myer, Virginia, a military post outside Washington, D.C. With the commitments in Europe, the brothers had to separate for the first time. With Wilbur off to France, Orville did the flying for the Army.

From the source document for the U.S. Signal Corps Agreement and Specifications for a Heavier-Than-Air Flying Machine, we have Measures of Effectiveness, Measures of Performance, Technical Performance Measures, and Key Performance Parameters defined to meet the contractual requirements from the Army. These are descriptions of what Done looks like in units of measure meaningful to the decision-makers.

The absence of these meaningful measures is a primary root cause of the failure of projects, and rarely if ever provided in Agile development efforts, since the naive notions of let's get started and we'll ask the customer to guide our work only on de minimis projects, where no one cares if you show up late, over budget, and the solution changes along the way.

The Wright Brothers identified key functions in the Table above – Obtained from historical documents in aviation archives, the Wright brothers needed to address the following Measures of Effectiveness (MOE), Measures of Performance (MOP), Technical Performance Measures (TPM), and Key Performance Parameters (KPP) in their program. to develop a heavier-than-air flying machine. They, and many before them, observed that birds have physical components that enable flight. They needed to develop their own physics components that would enable human flight. [2]

On the train ride from Kitty Hawk back to Dayton Ohio, the Wright brothers decided that, for their aircraft to be a success, their flying machine had to take off in a wide range of weather conditions, navigate to a predetermined location, and "land without wrecking."

Figures 11 and 12 below, show the initial estimated weight against reported project performance data. The actual weight reduction could have been used to drive or inform the cost and schedule status. As the planned weight burn down plan occurred, the actual weight reduction was measured. This Technical Performance Measure can be used to inform the cost, schedule, and technical performance to assess progress to plan.

For ALL project and program work, we must start with what capabilities are needed to accomplish the mission or fulfill a business strategy. When we start with a tool, a method, a framework, or whatever you want to call it, we are falling into the trap of buying a solution looking for a problem to solve. This is the case for the agile solutions, from simple eXtreme Programming to PMI's Disciplined Agile, and SAFe. While these methods may be useful, without knowing what Done looks like means you can't know if it's the right approach.

Define the Problem to be Solved First, Only Then Determine the Solution

This starts with defining the needed Measures of Effectiveness and Measures of Performance, as Wilber and Orville did above. Then defining the actual compliance with those MOEs and MOPs as the project progresses to assess if the goals will be met as needed to collect their $25,000 on or before the needed date.

[1] A History of the Airplane, Wright Brother Aeroplane Co, A Virtual Museum of Pioneer Aviation, A History of the Airplane, Wright Brother Aeroplane Co, A Virtual Museum of Pioneer Aviation, https://www.wrightbrothers.org/History_Wing/History_of_the_Airplane/History_of_the_Airplane_Intro/History_of_the_Airplane_Intro.htm

[2] “What is Systems Engineering? A Consensus of Senior Systems Engineers,” https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.454.6748&rep=rep1&type=pdf

[3] The Wright Brothers and The Invention of the Aerial Age, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/wright-brothers/online/index.cfm