11 Things for Clarity, Pragmatism and just the right amount of Disruption

Do you know what's happening across the organisation and what it means for your area of the business? Or do you rely on your employees to do the right thing for the business as a whole?

These and a raft of other questions are frequently asked by Executives that are connected with what's going on both in their own business unit and wider organisation. Through clarity, pragmatism and just the right amount of disruption, these Executives are connected in a way that increases the level of business benefit they can achieve through their operational and project activities.

We've identified #11Things we believe only a connected Executive could know...

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Book Review: Program Management

There's an awful lot written about program and project management (PPM). Much of it about the function of providing central admin and tools to support the 'how to' of managing PPM, rather than an effective organisational system that delivers the strategy.

Program Management by Michel Thiry (Published by Gower Publishing Ltd, 2010) covers both and it's refreshingly coherent.

The Sales vs Implementation Trap

Recently the news has been full of failed tech projects. Some are major government investments that have either been canned or are currently at risk. Others may be smaller yet the waste of time and money, not to mention the impact on reputation, are no less significant for the business or suppliers concerned. 

The reasons for failure are many and varied. Often seeds are sown during the early stages before there’s any sniff of a project let alone implementation. Expectations on both sides of the fence form and quite frequently remain unspoken. These sprout and grow as time progresses.

Back in 2011 I wrote a blog post about expectations of stakeholders and the role they play as an initiative moves from sales to implementation. It was a lead in to a guest spot on PMChat with Robert Kelly and Rob Prinzo. It's as valid now as it was then so I'm republishing it to trigger thinking and maybe, just maybe, tangible change through action.

4 Key Takeaways From A London Conference

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will have noticed my tweets last week came from the Business Process Management Europe Conference in London. It was co-located with the Enterprise Architecture Europe Conference and expertly hosted by IRM UK. It’s a long time since I’ve been to a conference and my expectations of both the speakers and content were high.

There were around 250 attendees representing 30 or more countries and many have blogged about their experience. Rather than taking you through the conference, its content and highlights from the various speakers I heard, I thought I’d share my 4 key takeaways. While they won’t surprise you they should confirm you’re either on the right track when it comes to influencing and delivering change or that some course correction is well overdue.