How many of your projects would you count as successful? I don’t mean successful delivery, though that is important. Hitting budget, schedule, and benefits is vital, but is it enough? Traditionally, the iron triangle has been something project managers can, more or less, control. This is where we have focussed our efforts – we can … Read more
0.5% of projects deliver to budget, on time, and with the benefits they were supposed to. Not my statistic, but from Alexander Budzier of Oxford Saïd Business School. It came from a study of more than 22,000 projects across sectors, showing 50% deliver on budget, 8% on budget and on time, and that 0.5% hitting … Read more
I was interested to see the changes brought in with the new PMP Exam on 9th July. Now, I’m not a PMP person myself – the UK in general leans more towards PRINCE2 – but it is a global force, so changes there are likely to appear in most other places. The PMP has three … Read more
A huge amount has been written about the role of project managers in, uh, project management – makes sense, right? A lot less has been written about the vitally important role of the project sponsor. That’s a trifle odd, seeing as in theory they are the most important person in the project – they are … Read more
Ah, the Lessons Learned Register, that most noble of project management artefacts. It selflessly exists not to make your project better (though it may) but to help those who come after strengthen their projects, avoid the pitfalls you discovered the hard way, and keep your successors on the righteous path of clear scope, cost, quality, … Read more
Ask five people what digital sovereignty means and you’ll probably get seven different answers. The definitions vary by industry, by sector, by geography, and by if the person you ask is trying to sell you their own version of it. So here’s what I mean by it, and why I think this is a useful … Read more
Most projects don’t fail suddenly. They fail gradually, then all at once. By the time a project appears on the board’s risk register as Red, the conditions that made it Red have usually been present for months. The warning signs were there, visible to anyone who knew what to look for, often being quietly ignored … Read more
Last time, I wondered if the time of project managers has been and gone. You’ll be glad to know the short answer is ‘no’. The longer answer, though, is a bit more complicated… As George said in the comments to the last article, the truth is, and always has been, somewhat more nuanced than I … Read more
Working in IT project management, I’ve had a lot of experience in building interfaces as part of my projects. But the important ones are nothing to do with the technology. When you are working on an IT project, it can be too easy to get carried away with the technical possibilities. I have worked with … Read more
Elizabeth Harrin has an interesting post up at A Girl’s Guide to Project Management called Use your experts. Despite my general lack of understanding of the importance of a good haircut (as anyone who has seen me recently can confirm…) I was interested by the idea of a project manager as someone who knows the … Read more
