When it comes to business Bob Parsons, the founder of possibly the world’s largest domain-name registry, believes that “the best partner is no partner”. The belief is based on that time-honoured Napoleonic phrase which we all utter, or mutter, from time to time “if you want a job doing well, do it yourself”. Continue reading
The term ‘meeting takeaway’ is used widely in today’s business and project worlds. The word ‘takeaway’ originated in the 16th century and combined the words ‘take’ and ‘away’. In those days it was a verb and associated with the receipt or giving of something.
The verb became a noun in the 20th century: a subtracted amount, a railcar for removing logs, and food cooked in one place and eaten in another (the American ‘takeout’). It also became a sporting term to mean the act of ‘stealing’ a ball from an opposing team or that first and all so important rearward swing of a golf club. Continue reading
Are project risks round? Curved objects can be less controllable than planar ones as they pitch, roll and yaw; and the tighter their curves the more difficult control becomes. Even a truly planar surface is, geometrically, a curve but with an infinite radius. The Earth’s horizon, that imaginary plane perpendicular to its radius is considered by some to be ‘flat’ but in reality it’s a sphere so we can never see over the horizon. But what has this got to do with project risk? Continue reading
Humble, personal, professional, expert or even uninformed; opinions are just opinions when the facts aren’t fully known or understood. Opinionators are merely stating their belief as to the what, why, when, where and the how something has happened and who was responsible, who is culpable and who has to do something. This belief is believed, at least by them, and, for the most part, they expect other people to believe it as well. Continue reading
The Pareto Principle, or more commonly the “80/20 rule”, is based upon the observation that 80% of the consequences of something are attributable to 20% of the causes. The quality guru Joseph Moses Juran named the Principle in 1941 after the Italian economist who, in 1896, observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The centenarian also similarly observed that 80% of quality problems result from 20% of the causes. In the business world we also see that 80% of a company’s revenue is generated by only 20% of its customers. As with life, things are not distributed either evenly or even fairly. Continue reading