Blog

I’m feeling upbeat today. After a grey start, the sun is shining as I write this. A neighbour has some builders in (that’s a sign that things are picking up) and their radio just played Yazz’s The Only Way Is Up. And Yazz’s little musical time capsule sent from 1988 is right, things are picking up –...

The UK was put into lockdown on 23 March in an unprecedented step to attempt to limit the spread of coronavirus. All our priorities changed in that instant, as business growth forecasts were side-lined, and we all focussed on business survival. But is still believe that behind every successful busin...

Looking through the various project specific publications on line this week , there seems to be a consistent theme emerging, businesses are adapting to the “New Normal” and trying to push forward, and that now is a time for project professionals to prove their worth and drive business change and rec...

“Behind every great, growing business is a successful IT Project team”. This was the working title of a blog post that I started writing in early March 2020. Looking back at it now, it was a wonderfully optimistic piece about how IT Project teams were inspiring, facilitating and delivering business ...

I hope I find you well. These are strange times aren't they?  I've had many conversations this week with colleagues, clients and IT Project acquaintances about where we are as an industry.   It's a mixed picture.   Some IT projects are on hold as businesses hibernate and try to weather the storm; ot...

How’s working from home working out for you and your people? We are just about getting into the groove. Copious tea and Smooth Radio on tap seem to be doing the trick! Friends and colleagues are sharing home schooling triumphs (although one friend’s six-year-old daughter is complaining about the lac...

Guest Blog by Bettina Wink – Project Manager at Stoneseed A few weeks ago, a friend of mine met me for a cuppa in our local café, with her was her twelve-year-old daughter, who was looking rather despondent, and in need of cheering up. Mad keen on skateboarding, she had taken a tumble on the ramps a...

Guest Blog from Bettina Wink - Stoneseed Project ManagerAs I write the schools are set to close from this afternoon due to government measures to address the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak in the UK. Thousands of companies up and down the country are forced to make difficult choices about home working, s...

With many of us stuck at home, a bit of light relief is always welcome,.. This is not our normal kind of post, but these are strange times, normally we write about all things Project management, as we specialise in PMaaS and Remote Project Services, but we thought we'd have some fun. Click on the li...

Reading back over some very old blogs I wrote I found a report called "The Challenges of Remotely Managing A Project". It must be more than ten years ago now and it's interesting thinking back to how I felt reading it. Stoneseed regularly managed projects remotely and it seem second nature and almos...

Recently, I had dinner in a well-known Asian restaurant chain. On their placemats, they described the Japanese art form of Kintsugi which seeks to, not just fix pottery, but treat its breakage as part of the history of the object and not as something to disguise. What a powerful metaphor for life in...

“If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution,” so said Steve Jobs. I love this quote. Often though, IT projects run into trouble because the team is working hard to answer the wrong question! I’ve shared this story with you before, I’m sure, but I think it sums up the problem. ...

An IT Project Management friend returned from a holiday in Japan with an unusual souvenir that he is applying to his work. Pretty much whenever Malc does anything he says out loud what it is that he is doing. It’s called “pointing and calling” apparently. It is quite intriguing to watch. “I’m commun...

In ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams, a supercomputer named Deep Thought mulls over the “ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything” and, after a period of seven and a half million years, comes up with the answer 42. How prescient! Mulling over the ultimate questio...

As I write this, for a second weekend, a storm is battering the UK. Storm Dennis has left us all clearing up in one way or another, flooded roads, deluged gardens, wind-battered properties and, on social media, lots of ‘free’ trampolines! Near us, two houses in the same street always have beautiful ...