Archive for 2008
I have not got time right now!
One of my favourite cartoons is of a leader fighting a war with swords and bows and arrows not having time to meet with a salesman who is selling a machine gun because he’s “too busy fighting a war”.
When you’re finding a task or process difficult and then someone suggests a new dimension that you [...]
Why you should not try to improve how you do projects!
Many organizations are wanting to ‘improve how they do projects’ so as to get better results, more consistent results or even some results.
The task is then handed to a special team, IT or a PMO to ‘fix’.
They, understandably, look at how they do projects now and what can be fixed. If they have a project [...]
Survival of the fittest
When the last economic downturn hit, companies responded by ‘downsizing’, ‘rightsizing’ or some other euphemism for reducing staff numbers.
This time, this option is not so readily available as the ‘surplus’ staff is no longer there.
Companies are going to have to be smarter in how they reduce costs and remain ‘fit’ to survive.
So, how fit is [...]
Is ‘avoided loss’ a benefit?
“If we don’t do this project, we’ll lose market share/customers/opportunities and that’ll be worth $XXm in lost revenue/profit!”
I’ve seen a number of projects justified with ‘avoidance of loss’ cited as the major (sometimes only) benefit.
The argument can be quite genuine. If the Blackberry did not respond to the iPhone, it would potentially lose significant market [...]
Am I being unreasonable?
When recently reviewing a project that had a projected benefits value of $32m we found that the true available value was over $100m.
So, if the project delivered the $32m is this true success? Or, is it a failure for failing to realize the other $70+m?
One of our surprising findings when we conducted our worldwide research [...]