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I have a new favourite way to pass free time. It's a webcomic called " xkcd " by Randall Munroe, an American cartoonist, author, engineer, scientific theorist, and the creator of the most addictive website ever! Especially the site's "What If" column, where Randall attempts to scientifically answer ...

If you have had anything to do with Public Sector IT procurement over the past two years or so, either as a client or a contractor, IR35 has probably never been far from your mind. My friend, a Public Sector IT Project Manager, jokes that he'd started seeing IR35 everywhere, "It's been the topic of ...

Can certain words cast a negative shadow on Project Management thinking? Originally published on CIO.com I walked into a Project Management Office recently, and on the wall, in large letters above the Project Leader's desk was the phrase 'No "Ifs", "Buts" Or "Maybes"'. At first, it looked like one o...

Previously published on PMToday My news feeds, as I write this, are full of talk of a Cabinet reshuffle. Prime Ministers and Presidents move core team members around (and in and out) to try to ensure that they have the right people in place to deliver strategic goals. Sometimes, whole new portfolios...

There's a fella used to go in a local fish and chip shop. Run with me on this. It must have been every week because he was always there whenever we decided to have a chippy tea on a Friday. For about the last month though, he hasn't been in the queue. I don't know his name but we had got quite frien...

Thanks to a reader of my CIO.com column, Gareth, who wrote to me with an idea for an IT Project Management blog. "Hi David," he writes, "Have you ever written a blog along the lines of 'you're only ever as strong as your weakest link.'" Gareth was inspired to get in touch after a train journey home ...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the team at Stoneseed! We’ve been blogging on a weekly basis for just over four years now, and in June we published an  ebook of our most popular blogs.  We  hope you enjoy reading our posts and w e look forward to sharing many more with you in 2018. We’ll be ...

Understanding the business strategy is vital to adding real IT value. Here’s why… Originally published on CIO.com I am loving an article on CIO.com by Martha Heller right now which opens with a great proposition - "How to strengthen IT’s connection to your business". I think that it’s crucial that t...

Originally published on PMToday.co.uk I took a train to London recently. Train journeys are like being given the gift of time. Once settled, I like to work, read the newspaper, take in the latest blogs from CIO.com or chew over the latest insight from the PMI. Then, other times, I like to just close...

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...