Be the Bad Guy

I read an interesting blog post the other day, called How Consensus Decision-Making Creates Shared Direction in a Team. The gist of the article is that for a team to be highly energised and committed to their work, they need to share a sense of direction. Now, I have to say that I broadly agree … Read more

Wasteful Savings

Times are tough for everyone out there at the moment. The economies of Europe and the US are slowing down again, and there are real fears that they could dip back down into recession. So it’s only natural that businesses are looking to cut their costs – but sometimes they are making the wasteful saving … Read more

Identify the problem

We all want to have successful projects. But what do we mean by successful? It’s not just a matter of hitting our milestones, on time and on budget. It’s also about making sure that the project goals are of value to the organisation we are working for. At the start of every project, you will … Read more

Making a difference

Project management is about creating change. All projects invole some sort of change, a change that will be beneficial to the organisation running the project. That’s why we have to be comfortable with change. Embracing change is one of the ways that project management is different from other sorts of management. In a business as … Read more

Professionalism and Society

Recently, I wrote about a preliminary study that had been done attempting to compare the value of various project management qualifications. I pointed out that, at least in part, it seemed to comparing apples with oranges, in that one qualification considered (PRINCE2) doesn’t try to sell itself as a general project management qualification, but specifically … Read more

Just talk

How do you find out the requirements for a product in your project? How do you find out how long a certain task will take? How do you make sure your Executive is up to date with where the project is? Communication is a vital part of project management. To me, it is the most … Read more

Fear of Failure

Last time, I talked about my hardest project, the production of Understanding Project Management. The work was hard, but so far feedback on the sneak preview has been good. The whole process has also given me a new insight into the difficulties faced by our team members. If they are too personally invested into what … Read more

My hardest project

Last week, I wrote about a difficult project, and asked you what some of your hardest project was. I also promised I’d tell you about my hardest project, and here it is. My hardest project is actually a small one. Just one person was needed to do the work on the product, and the project … Read more

Your Hardest Project

Project work can be tough. Project management can be really difficult, and take a lot out of you. I’m sure you’ve all had your fair share of tough projects, but can you remember your hardest one? I remember one of my most difficult was a major infrastructure rollout project. It involved people within the business, … Read more

Shoelaces

This is a very quick (3 minutes) TED video from Terry Moore, which just goes to show you should never dismiss the possibility of learning a better way to do something you think you already know everything about!