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 “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often,” so said Winston Churchill. He clearly never had to manage an IT Project in an organisation resistant to change. I think we've all experienced some of our darkest hours doing this. I was chatting to a PM friend this week and he joked that ...

If you've ever had a sleepless night over an IT Project, you can take some solace from the fact that you are certainly not alone. In fact, if you haven't suffered any anxiety that has woken you in the middle of the night in a cold sweat you should think yourself really lucky. That or worry that you'...

Why do some projects stir a passion within you and others leave you less revved up? Could unlocking the secret lead to fewer IT Project failures? It's true, isn't it? The more passionate about a task you are, the more likely you are to succeed. Even doing the dishes can be a chore or a fun twenty mi...

I was in a famous cocktail bar on Saturday night having a pre-dinner drink and was watching the bartenders making cocktails.  I was intrigued to see that, although they had a menu of over fifty cocktails, all of the 'mixologists' were able to make each drink from memory and without measuring any of ...

Who is your IT Project's Leader? At this time of year are you really leading or is your company's calendar more in charge? I ask because, independently, three Project Managers have told me that they are pulling their hair out because of unanticipated roadblocks along their projects' critical paths. ...

Have you ever taken on an IT Project, only to find that a major challenge either wasn't mentioned in the handover from the departing Project Manager or, if it was, it was implicit - not explicit. It's like those horror movies where a family buys a house only to find out, after they move in, that it ...

"Be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own," so said comedian and actress Amy Poehler. She's right. I heard a great story this week that highlighted the value of collaboration. A radio station, I think in Australia (but don't quote me), was brains...

Originally published on CIO.com We record 'lessons learnt' as part of the project management process but do we actually learn from them? Recent experience and the number of projects that fail to deliver suggest we could probably all do better at learning from lessons learnt. It is worth considering ...

IR35. Tick-tock, tick-tock.   Time is running out for you if you hire IT or project talent resources in an off-payroll capacity. You need to get ready NOW and adjust working practices that have become habits because WE ARE PROBABLY LESS THAN A YEAR AWAY from a universal roll-out of the IR35 ref...

I was reminded of an old Monty Python sketch today. Did you ever see Life of Brian? One of the characters Reg, played by John Cleese, asks "What have the Romans ever done for us?" One by one, other characters pipe up with loads of suggestions ... medicine ... roads ... public order ... Eventually, R...

Previously published on cio.comEverything that your business does should be aligned with your business strategy. Here’s why.. My friend's business is delivering financial services and he ensures that all his staff are suitably trained to provide the best advice, another friend's business is carrying...

In IT Projects, when something unexpected happens, I get better results when I respond, than when I react. You may have sussed this for yourself ages ago but my epiphany, strangely, came when I met a St John Ambulance community first responder. He was telling me about a traffic accident that he'd at...

Interesting perspective this week from my friend and fellow IT Project Leader Malc. Malc emailed to tell me that he had recently reframed his team's thinking on post-project delivery analysis. What he has done is pretty interesting and he says it is adding demonstrable value to the process. "We alwa...

I was inspired by a recent Facebook post by a friend who asked, in a status update, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Within minutes, dozens of replies appeared, all along the lines of "You OK hun?" or "How can I help?". She's fine by the way, just wondering why despite best efforts, bad th...

Originally published on CIO.com"As IT Project Managers we've managed some change over the years,” one of my oldest IT Project Management friends said in an email this week. “Now it's us facing a great change and if we don't we'll become increasingly irrelevant." In spite of this seemingly negative l...