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I say, "Why You Should Ask Santa For A Project Management Office” because I'm writing this with Christmas less than a month away but, if you're reading it at some other time of the year, feel free to swap in the Easter Bunny or whichever benevolent entity is about to bestow gifts upon you. This week...

It's a bit of a strange one this. Independently, I've had two people ask roughly the same question - why do IT projects always go wrong at this time of year? I'd never really thought about it before. By the way, in case you happen not to be reading this around the time I'm writing it, we're talking ...

Previously published on CIO.com   Failure Is the new success. Here are five ways that you can embrace failure and enjoy its unexpected benefits. Knowing when to say enough is enough and kill an IT Project must be among the hardest skills to learn. I'm not sure any of us ever totally master it either...

If I had a pound for every time someone in IT Project Management had talked of 'flexible resources' or resourcing ... well, I'd have a few quid by now. It's become something of an IT buzz word, hasn't it, but I wonder sometimes whether we’ve lost sight of its true meaning? Distilled to its essence, ...

Is Accountability Strangling IT Project Innovation? Why is it, with VERY public IT projects, that when they fail everyone seems to want to wash their dirty laundry in front of all to see? Accountability, apparently. Public interest. It's public money. The public has a right to know what went wrong. ...

Picture a Project Manager, a full team and a Business Analyst ... on every project. IT Project Nirvana. Budgets are tight so often it's the latter that either gets sacrificed, usually merged into someone else's role. Many Project Managers have in the past, had parts of their job description that loo...

Are you familiar with the TV show "It'll Be Alright In The Night?" It's a TV bloopers show, presented nowadays by Griff Rhys Jones, where the mistakes of the great and the good of the acting and television world are broadcast for a laugh. This last few weeks alone I've come across so many IT Project...

Last year saw record-breaking levels of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) involving UK firms. In 2016, there were 227 successful inward M&A transactions (overseas firm buys UK one) worth £187.4 billion - the highest annual number since 2011 and the highest yearly value since data was first publ...

A change is as good as a rest, so the old saying goes. Recently, it has struck me, that change can actually be a precursor to unrest, at least with some IT Change Projects. While reviewing one customer’s challenges, I identified that it wasn't scope creep that was impacting the project, nor was it a...

Are the best IT project solutions hiding shyly in the shadows? The loudest voices in our teams don't have exclusivity on the best ideas Originally published on CIO.com I received a nice email this week from Sarah, a regular reader of my blogs. It was a line of thanks for a previous post that had app...

A fresh perspective, different experiences and a whole new set of skills to learn from. When a new Project Manager joins there is a tangible frisson of excitement at the new opportunities for your Project Management Office or team. There are also considerable challenges, especially around onboarding...

That's right! How IT Project Management can make YOU a millionaire. Er, I suppose, during your lunch break, you could buy a lottery ticket. Did you expect more from the header of this post? Did I build your expectation unrealistically? Apologies, it's more than a devious bit of click-bait though. In...

I just spent some time with an exasperated CIO. Frustrated by IT Projects that were failing time after time - completing late and over budget - despite his Project Management Office being staffed by experienced Project Managers each with an impressive track record of success. "Could buying in Projec...

Originally published on CIO.com   As a CIO or a Project Manager you are a master of change to the point where, by now, it's probably like a sixth sense. This was certainly how I felt. Change Management had become so much a part of my daily routine that I had almost habitualised the process. I had a ...

 Three IT Projects have recently been almost scuppered by the same thing. A crippling, debilitating disease that lies dormant for months before inevitably and painfully killing the IT Project it has infected ... ‘Yesitis’. Sufferers of ‘Yesitis’ are unable to say 'no', perhaps because of a poor corp...