State of Indiana Makes Using Waterfall SDLC’s a Criminal Offense

”Waterfall software development lifecycles have terrorized technology projects in this state for too long,” Governor Mitch Daniels said at a simple signing ceremony held at a meeting of the Central Indiana chapter of the Project Management Institute (PMI). “This bill will end the tyranny of big upfront planning, big upfront design, and litigation style change management.”

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This is really my favorite Project Management question to which I don't have a real answer: are our industry's best practices really that, or do we merely say they are because as a PM we are expected to say so? You know that when you fall, you experience pain. You have felt that as a child. But how did you know that if you look cross-eyed and the clock strikes, your eyes will stay crossed forever? Because momma said so. But if momma was always right, why did she run away with the neighbor?

Photography by The Gold Guys.

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In my series called Proud Postings I ask several other bloggers in the Project Management arena What are the 3 postings you are most proud of?. This week three great postings from Stacey Douglas. She writes wonderful pieces on her blog "Undocumented Features".

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Its time for a reader suggestion thread and todays question is:

What is the best way to motivate project team members?

I have talked enough for a moment. Now it's you who can have a go at this topic. Please place a comment with your tip to motivate team members; how do you excite your team?

EDIT: The following offer is not valid anymore, but feel free to add your two cents.
As a little incentive (bribe :)) I will give an ebook version of my book "Surprise! Now You're A Software Project Manager" to the most original entry (so make sure you include your email address in the comment box)…

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My monthly column at Techtarget: Project managers cannot rely on generalizations:

Photography by Notariety.

"The second reason was given to me by Nassim Taleb in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. It is the human need to categorize everything. We just have to put the world around is in neat boxes. Taleb coins the term "Platonicity" for this phenomenon — "the focus on those pure, well-defined, and easily discernible objects like triangles, or more social notions like friendship or love, at the cost of ignoring those objects of seemingly messier and less tractable structures." We put a label on an event and use that knowledge to reason about the future. We use this mechanism on everything, including people."