Here are some of the points I mention to people when I'm contacted about our experience with the workshops here at Honeywell. The Managing by Project workshop is more than a project and planning tool. It's an entire process consisting of forming a project team, building working relationships, defining project requirements, laying out a plan and executing a simulated project across 25 weeks of activity. Throughout the 25 weeks of simulation, real life activities and barriers are experienced and dealt with. This is evident during many of my job site visits where I frequently observe project managers using techniques they learned in the workshop.
Software projects are different.
You can't see software, and that makes it difficult to measure and even more difficult to estimate projects and assess on-going or final productivity. This paper looks at what we know about software project estimation and productivity and looks at what we can learn by understanding software projects and software measures from a systems view. After managing small and large projects for over 30 years I see everything as a project. While many of my associates would manage projects by planning in excruciating detail and then imposing the inflexible plan on the workers, even when it wasn't working and everyone knew it, my management approach is based on controlling things and releasing people.