Despite the relative absence of large new clients, lease software vendors are still investing in their products, particularly their back office functions, reports Nic Evans in January 2010 Leasing Life. Finance Companies are expecting their technology to work harder in these tough times. As many organisations start new budget periods in the new year …
Category: Managing Change
Nov 07
Drive a stake through this cliché
Kill off “Stakeholders”. Not my esteemed business partners, suppliers, customers, technology, providers, shareholders, backers, funders, board members: I love you. Really. It is just the word. “Stakeholders”. Worse still the phrase: “Stakeholder Management”. It is very convenient shorthand – and I have been guilty using it in CVs and general project communications. So what’s wrong? …
Oct 13
PPM and Agile dont mix.. Right?
Let me give a blatant but well deserved plug to the PM Podcast – An excellent podcast on all aspects of project management. Catch it at http://www.thepmpodcast.com . The recent one that has caught my ear in particular was PPM and Agile dont mix.. Right? with a really good discussion of how you can combine …
Oct 13
Lets Do The Risk Warp Again
In this trilogy of blogs (triblogy?) we have been seeing how some basic intuition and understanding of projects can lead us to manage and master risks. Dont think all these charts and graphs are any great theory – they are just a graphic representation of common sense! Having understood the “cone of uncertainty” let us …
Sep 25
What have we got to loose?
Let’s develop some consequences of the cone of uncertainty – in particular the high risk and uncertainty at the start of the project. All is not lost down the cone of uncertainty. Although the inaccuracy is high at the start, the stakes aren’t high because you have no investment in the project. We’re talking here …
Sep 17
Planning Uncertainty
I came back to Mike Cohn’s great book on Agile Estimating and Planning. The Agile Manifesto that values responding to change over following a plan doesn’t at first seem to warrant a whole book on planning. It still needs to be done – as well illustrated by his quote : “A good plan violently executed …
Aug 07
Passing the point of no return
Pilots will know that when you are taking off there is a speed called V1. The plane has reached such a speed that there is not enough runway ahead of you to stop. So you are committed to take-off. Unfortunately V1 is usually less than V2 – the speed at which the plane can safely …
Jul 28
Risky Business
Here’s a great white paper on project risk assessment in the context of corporate risk appetite. http://www.projectperfect.com.au/white-paper-a-different-view-of-project-risk.php?b3note=riskmat Unfortunately it doesn’t extend onto management of project risks. The Office Of Government Commerce also has some really useful risk potential assessment tools and techniques . They even have the spreadsheets set up to save you the math! …
Jul 27
Labour Saving Devices
Very occasionally an IT project will be producing something totally new and innovative which hasn’t existed before. But the vast majority of IT change is all about improving business efficiency. The business case for the projects will have the costs of the projects which are offset by the benefits of reducing costs – most of …
Jun 30
Risks out of control
In any project some of the projects costs and benefits are out of your control. Not through any fault of the project. It’s just the way it is.In any business case there will be a number of macroeconomic and other external factors in play, and with the market discontinuity in the last year these have …