Time for Tennessee to Take Action
While many Midwest states are making headlines as COVID-19 is reaching new highs, cases are increasing across the country. This includes Tennessee, which is surpassing its summer highs in new cases per day. See the…
Risk – It’s Not Just Another Four-Letter Word
An organization or project that wants to ensure its success should practice sound risk management. According to the Project Management Institute, more than 80% of high-performing organizations apply risk management. The best way for a…
The Effectiveness of Mask Mandates in the Nashville Metro Area
Of the sixteen counties in and around the Nashville metro area, eight had mask mandates for much of the last two months. Of these eight, all except one were ended or allowed to expire at…
COVID-19 and Regional Waves of Hospitalizations
In my last post, I wrote about how COVID-19 in the United States is three distinct, somewhat regional outbreaks. In the Spring, cases peaked in the Northeast, then in the Southeast in the Summer. Now…
COVID-19 in the United States is Three Distinct Outbreaks
As of early October, the United States has experienced three distinct and somewhat regional outbreaks of COVID-19. The first was in the Northeastern states along with Michigan and Illinois (concentrated in Detroit and Chicago). In…
Lucky or Good – The Role of Chance in Successful Projects
In the film Dirty Harry, the title character, a police detective played by Clint Eastwood, puts an end to an attempted bank robbery by shooting two of the robbers, and then holds the third at…
Rwanda Is Crushing the COVID-19 Curve – But At What Cost?
The U.S. state of Ohio and the African nation of Rwanda have similar size populations – 11.7 and 12.3 million people, respectively. Rwanda is crushing the COVID-19 curve while Ohio has not. See the graph…
The Pareto Principle and COVID-19
The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The management guru Robert Juran noticed that this type of inequality held true for many…
Obsolete on Arrival – The Problem of Change in Project Management
Large projects, which take years, and even decades to complete, can become obsolete by the time they are finished, if not before. Long projects either face addressing a series of changes in requirements to meet…
Thank God for Louisiana
Six weeks ago, I wrote a blog post titled “Thank God for Mississippi.” It was a reference to an old saying in Alabama that even though the state was ranked 48th or 49th out of…