2009-04-09 More Ranting

I'm a flickr professional now. In a manner of speaking. It's a funny way to put it, really. When normal people say they go pro, they mean that they get paid for what they do. When flickr suggests you go pro, what they mean is that you should pay them.

***

Speaking of silliness. Here's a quote from the second edition of "A Survival Guide for Project Managers". It is written by James Tyler, who was born in 1937. I absolutely do not recommend this book because the authors use their own twisted interpretation of Mathematics to justify formulas that are at best heuristics.

"Most of us [project managers] are very familiar with the bell curve and that statistically [...] a little over 99 percent will fall between -3 sigma and +3 sigma. What many people do not realize is that the area under the beta distribution curve [...] from -3 sigma to +3 sigma contains nearly 100 percent of the samples. [...] Therefore, to ensure that we have a 100 percent probability [...], we must add 3 sigma to the calculated average."

Here's another one:
"The fifty-fifty rule assumes that when a task begins, it is 50 percent complete; when the task is completed, it is 100 percent complete."

I'm not saying that all project managers are silly or mathematically illiterate. In fact I know quite a few good ones. All I'm saying is that some authors of project management books are clueless. Very clueless. That's all.

***

In unrelated news, Walter finally got his very own name tag. Roaming mode enabled. Now he's hardly ever at home. Turns out our cute little kitty is kind of a wild boy out there...