Can we really manage risk, or do we delude ourselves by going through the prescribed activities of ‘risk management’ giving the illusion that it’s happening? Is risk management merely a hypocritical ritual and applying some science to fate through statistical mumbo-jumbo, decision trees, and quantitative analyses? Continue reading
ROCKING THE PROJECT BOAT – NOT A CRIME, POSSIBLY A VIRTUE.
The project has hit a bad patch, it’s in a rut and the wheels are spinning; it’s not moving forward, and the rut is getting deeper. “When you’re in a hole – stop digging!” goes the project management adage because digging only makes the hole deeper and makes it more difficult to get out of both physically and figuratively. Continue reading
Projects go wrong and in our binary world projects either succeed or fail. There is a plethora of articles, opinions and reasons for such success and failure but why, and how, is this possible when we have more and more ‘qualified’ project managers?
When a project is still moving or hasn’t fallen apart it may be categorised as “it ain’t broke” and optimistic project managers may conclude “no need to fix it“. However, we all know that preventive maintenance will allow for successful operation and minimise breakdowns and avoid trouble, “a stitch in time saves nine“. Continue reading
We live in an age where blame seems to be the name of the game. When something has gone wrong, somebody is doing better, or something is ‘strange’, a scapegoat must be found.
The recent US Congressional Hearing into Facebook failed to make blame stick as modern-day dinosaurs “interrogated” a tech-savvy icon…just as in the days of McArthy’s efforts with gays and commies; maybe next time Congress, maybe. Continue reading
The project is in progress and, no matter what stage it is at, the project management team and all other stakeholders will see it from different perspectives. Management is called upon to face reality rather than rely on their forecast of what should be happening or what should have happened.
But when the going gets tough, and the tough get going, others may well have left physically or metaphorically by ‘keeping their head down’ and ‘going with the flow’. Continue reading