For all businesses, these are strange times. Time was, looking back, business was quite straightforward – sure there were talent shortages, market forces to contend with and the fridge always seemed to be out of milk when you made a brew. But really, before the pandemic and the upending of the geopo...

A recent story on the Cost of Living caught my eye, both as a mum trying to make ends meet and as a Project Management Office (PMO) evangelist. The story, you may have seen it, was about ‘vampire devices’ that silently cost you money while on standby. It struck me that IT Projects can fall victim to...

Randomly, I switched the radio the other week to hear Stoneseed’s windscreen ice scraper getting a shout out!!  Then, as the day went on, several customers contacted me to say they’d heard it too. The ice scraper is a nice, Stoneseed branded, piece of promotional merchandise that we give to all our ...

PMaaS = ∑ Capability + Flexibility + Control. Our PMaaS model is a sum of all these parts but the one that sets Stoneseed apart and is loved by our customers, is flexibility. Combine that with control and you really do have a winning formula. We provide you the ability to flex resources to follow pr...

“Expect the unexpected. Deal with what you’re dealt” This could be a mantra from the last couple of years, couldn’t it? Actually, it’s a caption from a poster, in the style of a movie billboard, that I saw on the wall of an IT Project Manager’s office, probably about ten years ago now. The hero was ...

Half Term, Easter Break and Bank Holidays are upon us, It’s time for chilling, and digging out old movies.  As my wife and I rummaged through the DVD collection (old school, I know) and argued over whether Die Hard is Christmas movie or not,  my Wife plumped for “ The Devil Wears Prada” a perennial ...

One of my project-consultant friends shared with me an experience this week that may ring true for many of us. He’d been working with a project team of experienced, time-served, qualified, and certified project managers who had endured an unusually bad run of project failures. In fact, since the pos...

So, we thought we would be emerging from the COVID Pandemic with some relief; in some ways, we have.A vaccine was created within a year, and we were all allowed to go on holiday again, but fast forward a few months…We are facing rising fuel and gas prices, a huge rise in the cost of living and the p...

British Sugar engaged with Stoneseed’s Project Management services to support the development of a, first of its kind, private mobile network with Virgin Media O2 Business.Stoneseed’s Chris Allen worked with the British Sugar team, project managing the onsite engineers and suppliers to ensure the su...

“Have you heard about this gymnastic approach to project management?” my colleague Helen, Head of Marketing at Stoneseed, asked sometime last year. As Stoneseed’s alpha-natural-athlete, my interest was piqued and I started to imagine where the parallel bars, pommel horse and balance beam would fit i...

“The need for transformation is imminent, and individuals and organisations must fine-tune skills that drive change.” These are the words of Michael DePrisco, Interim President & CEO and Chief Operating Officer of Project Management Institute, upon publication of the PMI’s Global Megatrends 2022...

You often hear of people getting a second opinion when it comes to their health or medical advice. But what about the health of your IT Project? When was the last time you questioned your instincts, asked for another person to run an objective fresh pair of eyes over your decisions or sought a total...

Each month the staff at Stoneseed are asked to nominate their colleagues as part of a recognition scheme, where they have seen hard work, over achievement or acts of kindness and helpfulness. The winner receives a £100 to donate to a charity of their choice.   We are delighted to say, this month Amy...

It’s people that deliver successful IT Projects! When methodologies are effective – it’s the team of people that make them so, data is king but it’s nothing without the individuals who interpret it and make the big decisions based upon their reading of it, and no matter how AI has evolved to help – ...

I’m really proud of our people and our culture at Stoneseed, they are the reason why our clients enjoy the successful project outcomes that they do, and they are why coming to work feels like getting together with your family. Like most businesses, at the time of writing this, a hybrid of office wor...

Between now and April, large organisations in both the public and private sector will be allocating budgets. Many may be finding them to be not quite as generous as in previous years.  Post-Covid many markets have changed; a number have contracted. Many are reporting how their IT Projects have had t...

A client who is a huge M People fan was delighted that I’d remembered this fact when I called her this week, she was less delighted though that I’d called to discuss that the band’s lead singer, Heather Small, had been revealed to be Chandelier on Masked Singer! “Thanks, David, I’ve not seen that on...

In a recent episode of ITV daytime Game Show ‘Tipping Point’, contestant Dom made me howl with laughter at his answer to one of host Ben Shephard’s questions! You will probably have seen this by now – it went viral. The question was this: “In his epic poems, Homer often refers to nectar as the drink...

My kids were always asking impossible questions like “Which came first, chicken or egg?”, “Is soup a food or a drink?”, “If the Universe was created by a big bang, what existed before it?” And “If it’s ever expanding, what’s outside it?” I have one to add, just as difficult to answer - “What’s the o...

Each month the staff at Stoneseed are asked to nominate their colleagues as part of a recognition scheme, where they have seen hard work, over achievement or acts of kindness and helpfulness. The winner receives a £100 to donate to a charity of their choice.   We are delighted to say that this month...