Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War nearly 2500 years ago; his ideas have been widely translated and are regularly used as a guide for management thinking. This post will take a different perspective, ‘Sun Tzu and the art of stakeholder engagement’! After all “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle”, which is […]
Stakeholder Management from the perspective of Sun Tzu Read More »
Have you ever wondered why some people are always late for meetings or why some people get upset when you are late but others don’t worry too much?? The chances are you are dealing with people who see time differently. For some, time flows from the future into the present and on to the past
Perspectives on time! Read More »
We’re all familiar with the idea of documents such as a change log or lessons log. Some people also keep a diary known as a daily log, but how many of us use that as a sort of ‘ideas log’? Many good project and programme managers have a creative streak. They are constantly thinking of
Keep your ideas to yourself – for now Read More »
Embedding a project management policy in an organization is the first of many steps that will help you leverage the immense potential of project management for your business. The choice of the right methodology, project manager and project management software, and impressing upon employees the need to scrutinize, align, evaluate and monitor their activities within
Defining Productivity through the Prism of Project Management Read More »
OK! Now I’ve got your attention, I’m not really saying we should drop the idea of quality in project management, I’m just saying we should look at it in a different way. Take the ‘triple constraint’ for example. Its creation is usually attributed to Dr. Martin Barnes and the basic idea is that you can’t
Time to drop quality from project management Read More »
Some years ago, I was working in a company that manufactures and installs marine power plants around the world. One of their typical projects lasted for 4 to 5 years and contained many sub-projects which in themselves had a value of millions of dollars. The sub-projects were further broken down into work packages and then
The human side of earned value management Read More »
or ‘The answer to risk management that isn’t working is not more risk management’ I was invited into the office of a Director of a large, regulated infrastructure business. In the UK, companies regulated in this way are obliged to invest in the country’s infrastructure. The target amount of investment is agreed with the regulator
The human side of risk management Read More »
Everyone talks about motivation, work-life balance and developing a productive team, only a few realise the importance of ‘happiness’ within this equation. This post will look at a measureable change in team performance created by a change in emphasis by ‘management’ to bring a sense of fun back into a very seriously fought competition. As
The power of Happiness Read More »
Do you know what RAG status ratings are? Maybe you haven’t heard them referred to in such a manner, and are more familiar with using ‘traffic lights’ to track the performance of your project. Visual cues are so much easier to understand than lengthy status reports, which is why so many project teams use the
Are you using RAG status ratings to full effect? Read More »
With depressing regularity, someone in a magazine or a social media site will ask “What are the top reasons why projects fail?” Unsurprisingly, such surveys come up with the same old answers time after time. The first example I ever found was from an IPMA conference in 1972, so we’ve been identifying the same reasons
Projects fail for the same reasons fad diets fail – it’s simple but not easy! Read More »
