I was discussing a project with a software engineer last week and mentioned Gruen Tenders, which I've bored Troppodillians with previously here and here.  He said that I was describing 'Evidence Based Scheduling' as described by software geek and commentator Joel Spolsky (obviously from the Irish community) at Joel on Software.  As I felt at the time, it's such an obvious and commonsensical idea that I doubt I was the first to think of it and I'm not the last.