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When excellence is not enough: Robert Buttrick (April 2010)
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The only reason for undertaking a project is to add value to an organisation in pursuit of its
strategic objectives. Any project which does not do this is useless or a sink for scarce
resources.
Projects, however, do not directly create value. They deliver new capability to an organisation,
but it is the organisation itself which creates value by using those capabilities.
Value creation (benefits realisation) usually happens after a project has been completed.
Thus, benefits realisation cannot solely relate to a project but applies to the organisation as a
whole.
Add to that the fact that many projects and day-to-day activities may contribute to the same
benefit measure, and it is often impossible to separate which activity or project have produced
which effect.
A pragmatist may argue that if the total benefit is achieved within any overall constraints, then it is not essential for such back
analysis to happen. Most business leaders are pragmatists!
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Learning to lead: Steve Kirk, SGK Consulting (February 2010)
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“I’ve worked with my stakeholders to identify their requirements. I’ve talked to my experts to
work out the scope of my project and estimate each task. I’ve painstakingly put together the
schedule and budget and documented it all in a project specification. I’ve even agreed a risk
and governance plan with my sponsor.
“I’ve had the project kick-off and distributed the work packages. So how come nothing is
happening? I’m already late for the first milestone and every time I chase up my project team, it
seems they are too busy on other work to help me. Why isn’t this going better?”
Does this scenario sound familiar? Have you rigorously followed ‘best practice’, only to run into
a thick blanket of apathy and indifference? It just doesn’t seem fair, does it?
The answer is to start behaving as a leader, not just as a manager.
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Putting people first: Terry Cooke-Davies, Human Systems (November 2009)
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Planning and process have long been seen as the real heart of project management. After all,
“You have to build the walls before you can put the roof on”, project novices are told. It is the
order of things that matters, and it is the level of organisation needed to ensure things happen
in a precise order – that is where the real skill lies.
As with most broad statements, there is some truth in all this, but it doesn’t tell the whole story –
perhaps not even a fraction of it.
The problem is that people, rather than machines, ‘make things happen’ and whilst human
beings are an incredibly powerful resource, they are unpredictable and often irrational.
Understanding what motivates them and influences their emotions is critical to learning how to
control and manage them.
The more we realise the significance of this, the more we understand how limited planning and process skills are in what they
can achieve on their own!
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The 'I's have it: Benita Sutton-Cegarra, BJC Europe (September 2009)
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In business today, 80% of strategy is never implemented. Imagine how much time, effort and
money is wasted in the process. So why does this happen?
In most large organisations, the strategic direction is usually defined and developed by a small
group at corporate headquarters, taking external factors into account, but not involving the
operational organisation. It is a one-way process and the organisation does not have the energy
to deal with something they perceive to be so divorced from reality.
In small companies, there is often just one person at the centre, who believes they have to
make sense of everything and who ends up trying to do everything. Usually, they achieve only a
fraction of what needs to be done because there is too much to cope with alone. The
employees don’t offer help, as they don’t believe it’s their role.
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Fed up with Gino?: Steve Clarke, Onemind Management (April 2009)
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Whether your initiative is to counter global warming, host the Olympics or improve the business
of an organisation, effective programme and project management is essential. And that in turn
is deeply dependent on effective governance. But this too often results in ‘Governance in Name
Only’ or Gino – and the cost of continuing to live with Gino is much too high.
My experience in designing and implementing governance arrangements for a range of
programmes and projects is that there is widespread misunderstanding about how to encourage
senior management to adopt suitable governance behaviours.
So how do you establish effective governance? This article sets out to be deliberately
challenging on the issue. By throwing down the gauntlet to conventional views, I hope to kickstart
a long-overdue discussion on why organisations find it so difficult to establish effective
governance – and I invite you to join me in that discussion.
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Success in uncertain times: John Brinkworth, Serco Consulting (February 2009)
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We are currently facing uncertain times, with constrained budgets and rapid unpredictable
change. In relatively calm economic circumstances, most programmes are able to run to
completion as originally envisaged – but now pressures and changes may mean that a
programme’s future needs to be re-examined.
A programme that was expected to run for a significant length of time may need to be finished
sooner than originally planned. Resources can then be released and possibly redeployed onto
other priorities, which may have arisen at short notice.
And even if your organisation has the comparative luxury of choosing when to end a
programme rather than having to stop it immediately, you are faced with a difficult decision:
when is the optimum time to do this?
For while projects often have clear-cut end points with identifiable deliverables, programmes are different as they generate
outcomes that are more about achieving business change. The question you have to answer is: has the programme
succeeded enough to declare it complete?
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Putting people first: Sean McDonald, ESI International (November/December 2008)
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On any given day, you probably have a lengthy to-do list sitting on your desk or computer, filled
with projects and tasks to which you will eventually attend. Depending on your mood, directives
from your boss or the way the economic stars have aligned that week, you are constantly
shuffling these tasks in terms of priority.
Organisations, no matter how big or small, do the exact same thing every day as they struggle
to effectively determine what needs attention yesterday, what needs it today and what, if
anything, can wait until tomorrow.
Complicating the issue, most companies are bombarded with new strategic initiatives and
opportunities every month – some of which align with overarching goals, and some of which,
ultimately, do not. Choosing which of these items makes it onto your organisation’s to-do list
can be difficult and costly.
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Painting the bigger picture: Hugh Buckley, Quortex (September 2008)
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Most medium to large-size companies manage a portfolio of dozens or even hundreds of
projects to deliver change and new products into their businesses. Many of these companies
use established project methodologies to help manage and deliver this portfolio – such as
PRINCE2, PMBOK or other ‘inhouse’ variants developed over the years.
However, the results and delivery achieved can still be disappointing despite the use of these
methodologies. There may be many reasons for this: the right departments not being engaged early enough; failure to take account of the wider business impacts of a project and not just the IT impacts; gaps in responsibilities across the functions; poor understanding of what each function really ought to deliver; and lack of the right skills and expertise in key areas.
Sometimes, the problem can come down to the simple fact that the business can’t quite harness the capability due to politics,
lack of trust or loss of focus – especially if the linkage between the true goals of the organisation and ‘how I/my team contribute
to those goals’ is lost.
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It's not what you do...: Martin Taylor, Changethreesixty (June 2008)
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So you have used Evaluation Centre to help make a decision on which project management
software solutions to review. But what approach are you going to take to arrive at the final
decision?
It makes sense to use a straightforward scorecard, including all the key criteria that you require
from the software, with all members of the decision-making team providing scores.
However, what is equally important is how you feel about the people you will be working with –
the type of relationship that will be established with the software provider and what type of
company they are. Ask yourself: can I really work with these people?
It is likely to be a different type of relationship when you are in the evaluation process (when you are more in control and the
software provider wants to add you to its client list), compared to when you are a customer and in need of after-sales support. So
make sure you undertake your due diligence thoroughly, research the product, obtain references – and preferably visit them –
research the company, attend other demonstrations or user group meetings, speak to colleagues and check out their experiences.
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Getting projects in a solid state: Dr Richard Seabrook (March 2008)
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It is a cliché within the IT industry that projects go over time, over budget and don’t deliver what the users want. The bigger the
project, the more dramatic its failure; grandiose projects are now widely expected to fail simply because they are large scale,
never mind any of the other possible risk factors.
In fact, the repeated failure of IT projects to hit their target is a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The
Second Law (see Box), inspiration for a song by Flanders and Swann, and with a large part in Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia, is
widely regarded in scientific circles as the supreme physical law.
C P Snow regarded knowledge of the Second Law as the crucial test of the breadth of a person’s education; he said, in The
Two Cultures, that to be ignorant of it is the scientific equivalent of never having heard of Shakespeare.
There are several ways of stating the three Laws of Thermodynamics, and the Second Law in particular.
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Perfect partnership?: Steve Kirk, SGK Consulting (January 2008)
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If you were asked to define the top five critical success factors for any business change project,
you would probably come up with a list something like this: strong leadership; well-defined requirements; effective business change; prudent risk management; and a compelling business case.
But how often are projects started without a clear responsibility for these areas? It’s no good
paying lip service to them and just expecting them to happen; we all know that leaving things to
chance isn’t the most effective way of getting things done.
Instead, wouldn’t you rather have the resources with the skills to address these five areas assigned to your projects?
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Wall-planner heaven?: Gareth Lewis, Pserendipity (November 2007)
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How did we use to manage resources and projects in the days before computers? One halfterm
when I was young I remember going to the factory where my Dad worked and being very
impressed by a wall-planner which had multi-coloured job cards at various stages of completion
allocated to what appeared to be war heroes, but were actually the nicknames of the foremen of
the teams responsible.
I suppose for the time it was extremely sophisticated, and represented an almost foolproof
status-monitoring system for management. Nevertheless, it had many defects in practice. It was
only three-dimensional, since it specified the job details on the coloured card, the team on the
one axis and the status on the other. It was updated by only a single user (the factory
manager’s secretary, a frightening – to me anyway – lady), thereby minimising ‘input’ errors;
and while anybody could look at it, access to the factory office was restricted to those who had
taken off their work boots!
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Beyond conventional management: Dom Moorhouse, Moorhouse Consulting (Sept 07)
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Lack of effective engagement with stakeholders is a well-known cause of programme failure. As
a result, stakeholder management is increasingly recognised as a relevant discipline – and
there are already many tools and techniques available addressing this area.
But these techniques over-emphasise a mechanistic ‘left brain’ view of the world. What is really
needed is something quite different.
Of course, there is no panacea that will confer instant success on your programme – no magic
framework, technique, tool or model. If anyone attempts to sell you one, we politely suggest
they have never left the academic lab.
What is required, conversely, is for a proactive attitude, or state of mind, to be enthused across
the programme team. We refer to this attitude as ‘PRIME Intelligence’.
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Who's in charge?: Hartley Millar, Management Partners (June 2007)
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Poor projects collapse. ‘Good’ projects take on a life of their own. But with a life of their own they can easily: lose sight of the business case; deploy technology for its own sake; confront internal stakeholders with over-the-top ‘requirements’ and supposed dependencies; lose sight of external stakeholders’ (including customers’) interests; and continue themselves and demand resources long past their sell-by date.
Clearly project management should be held to account for projects getting out of control – or failing. But who is ultimately
responsible for appointing and controlling project management? And how can project managers know enough about the
environment to be able to moderate their demands, or to take account of factors that are outside the scope of the project
itself?
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One size doesn't fit all: Siân Ferguson/John Fisher, Novare Consulting (Feb 07)
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At the heart of the PRINCE2 methodology is a flexibility that allows it to cope with any size of project. Yet despite this inherent
adaptability, when it comes to small projects, one size doesn’t fit all and a ‘micro’ version of PRINCE2 is required. And judging
by internet searches, consultancy offerings and trade magazine content, there seems to be significant interest in organisations
in such an approach.
Organisations are concerned about delivery of small projects for two reasons. The first is obvious – companies tend to have
lots of small projects! The total value of these initiatives in some organisations far exceeds the budget, benefits and impacts of
their larger projects.
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Getting a good review: John Brinkworth, Serco Consulting (December 2006)
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The media regularly report that IT projects continue to run into problems and do not always
deliver as expected. Surveys claim that between 50% and 70% of IT projects fail to some
degree. This is surprising and concerning, since good practice for project management is welldefined
and well-documented.
Managers involved in project governance are faced with the serious challenge of how to reduce
the chances of their projects running into trouble. Project assurance can be the answer.
But how can you tell the difference between good and bad project assurance? Good assurance
can help to improve the chances of a successful outcome; whereas poor assurance can impose
more bureaucracy without improving delivery chances.
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Route to rapid change: Benita Sutton-Cegarra, BJC Europe (November 2006)
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Being able to respond quickly and effectively to customers’ needs is paramount. Unfortunately,
the systems and processes used in many organisations have not proved able to keep pace with
the rapid business changes that occur within companies and the external environment.
Large-scale systems and business process change programmes, such as a SAP
implementation, take years to prepare and implement, and the external environment doesn’t
stop changing to wait for the implementation to be completed. So what do you do when your
organisation needs results fast?
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Sponsorship, leadership and PM: Robert Buttrick, Project Workout (September 06)
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The function of project sponsor is gaining recognition as a vital leadership role in making
effective change happen. Many organisations have ‘institutionalised’ the role – which
may also be called project owner, senior responsible officer or project director. But who
is this person accountable to? If, as a project sponsor, you don’t know who you are
accountable to, you are not accountable!
Some organisations are mature in terms of how their project management
accountabilities co-exist with other formal leadership roles. Others are not. In small
organisations (or autonomous small business units within larger organisations), the
accountability for overall leadership and direction is usually obvious. It will be the CEO
and their leadership team. There will only be tens of projects underway at any one time,
a number which should be relatively easy to handle.
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21st century PM: David Hofferberth, Service Performance Insight (July 2006)
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The movement to a services economy, and its emphasis on managing projects, will drive
economic growth in all developed nations. Transformational thinking, that the project is the
centre of economic growth going forward, is permeating the executive suites in every industry. It
also bolsters the need for greater discipline in project management.
Business solutions that optimise the benefits of project management have significantly
increased in demand over the past decade. These solutions, termed ‘services automation’ for
the variety of project and services-driven organisations they support, are becoming an integral
part of business.
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The reluctant project manager: Steve Kirk, SGK Consulting (April 2006)
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For many managers, projects are just another task they would rather not have. Often
organisations are not set up with projects in mind – yet if they are going to develop as a
business, they need to successfully undertake projects: new products need to be
launched, new IT systems need to be implemented and new HR policies need to be put
in place.
In an ideal world, managers would be trained in project management skills as part of
their career development and would be equipped to take on these challenges. Sadly, this
is often not the case. So how can you avoid the pitfalls and get that project completed,
without the benefit of classic project management expertise?
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Getting an assurance policy: John Brinkworth, Serco Consulting (February 2006)
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The media regularly report that projects continue to run into problems and do not always
deliver as expected. Surveys claim that between 50% and 70% of IT projects fail to
some degree. This is surprising and concerning, since good practice for project
management is well-defined and well-documented. People involved in project
governance are faced with the serious challenge of how to reduce the chances of their
projects running into trouble. ‘Project assurance’ can be the answer.
How can you tell the difference between good and bad project assurance? The first can
help to improve the chances of a successful outcome; the latter is likely to simply impose
more bureaucracy without improving your delivery chances. There are a number of key
activities that typify good project assurance.
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