Category Archives: Projects@Risk™ – Malcolm Peart

#309 – LEARNING CURVES: A BITTER TRUTH BUT UNDENIABLE RISK! – MALCOLM PEART

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Despite our collective educational establishments that purport to teach so that people can learn, ‘education’ is not necessarily learning.  Mark Twain wrote disparagingly that “Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned” and also that he never let schooling interfere with his own education.  Education is not necessarily knowledge and real learning comes from the application of theory tempered with experience which will make for better decisions and better outcomes.  Benjamin Franklin’s words from over 200 years’ ago “Tell me, I forget. Teach me, I remember. Involve me and I learn” still ring true today. Continue reading →

#307 – MEETING PROCRASTINATION RISK OR PRODUCTIVITY OPPORTUNITY – MALCOLM PEART

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You wait 15 minutes for people to turn up, call-in, or get on-line.  Some may have popped down to Starbucks to get their daily fix of skinny hazelnut caramel latte, or green tea or Evian water.  The punctual few chit-chat away about anything and everything except the meeting agenda in case they commit some anticipatory faux pas.  Then there are those, particularly the decision makers, who let everybody know that they only have a certain amount of time available; they will need to leave promptly so they won’t be late for their next meeting and with all plausible deniability may avoid decisions and conclusions; but wasn’t that the point of the meeting? Continue reading →

#305 – WAITING TO RUSH IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT – MALCOLM PEART

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How often do we rush something only to wait for somebody else to finish their work, or make a decision, or even turn up to a meeting?  The military have a humoristic expression for this; ‘’hurry up and wait’’ which was spawned during WW2.  This is not only frustrating but an all too true sign of failing to plan and not preparing properly.  When we fail to plan we have, either deliberately or naively, planned to fail.  But why do some endeavors fail even when a ‘plan’ exists and we end up ‘’waiting to rush’’. Continue reading →

#304 – GOLDILOCKS MANAGEMENT: GETTING THINGS ‘JUST RIGHT’ – MALCOLM PEART

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I was once taught that good project management and mitigating the risk of failure was a combination of Fayol’s three pillars of planning, organising and controlling glued together by effective communication and enclosed in a bubble of morale.  I was later to learn that that if one overindulges or ignores any one pillar, or fails to communicate effectively rather than just efficiently, the oftentimes thin bubble of morale may rupture.  The unfortunate result is the loss of management coherence and the real possibility of project failure. Continue reading →

#302 – THE PROBLEMATIC PROJECT – IGNORANCE, CURVES, SPIRALS, AND SLOPES – MALCOLM PEART

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A project with a problem…not a new phenomenon and more likely than not ‘business as usual’ for most, but how do we address the problems on our projects?

Theoretically there’s the risk register and plan with a predetermined set of mitigation actions and designated owners who, although being potential scapegoats, are expected to manage risks magnificently while still dealing with the rest of their, hopefully, nonproblematic scope.  Problems plague projects despite alleged prior preparation and proper planning.  But it’s the way that people behave and interact that can make all the difference when resolving the problem and keeping the rest of the project on-track. Continue reading →