September 3rd, 2005
Project Management Unknowns
I really liked this quote, form Donald
Rumsfeld at a NATO
briefing on June 06, 2002:
"There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns.
That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there
are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
. ... It sounds like a riddle. It isn't a riddle. It is a very serious,
important matter."
It's always the unknown unknowns that kill a project. You don't know what
you don't know, and the only way to find out what you don't know is to
do the project. The next time you do a similar project, there are fewer
unknown unknowns, and you are better at estimating it. Some people are
"luckier" than others at avoiding problems, but as the champion
golfer Gary Player once said "The more I practice, the luckier I get."