“As Project Manager, juggling all of the balls is important, but keeping your eye on the right ball is the key to delivering truly successful projects” – RG While understanding the causes of project failure is important, without a common definition of “success”, there is no clear basis for differentiating a success from a failure. Clearly [...]
Posts under ‘Quality’
Attitudes for Altitude
Lesson learned: Hire for attitude and potential, not just experience. Category: Person skills development / hiring. The following post is a “Lesson Learned“ that comes from the analysis of the failed projects documented in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” or from the experiences the editorial team have had working with clients around the world. The post is published here [...]
The Bean Counter’s Blind Spot
Lesson learned: Be careful what you measure and how you measure it. Category: Project objectives / Decision making. The following post is a “Lesson Learned” that comes from the analysis of the failed projects documented in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” or from the experiences the editorial team have had working with clients around the world. The post [...]
Say it with Samples
Lesson learned: Use real life samples to make training more effective. Category: Training / skills development. The following post is a “Lesson Learned” that comes from the analysis of the failed projects documented in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” or from the experiences the editorial team have had working with clients around the world. The post is published [...]
Social Learning
Being something of a Systems Thinker, I often find myself reflecting on events to see if I can understand the cause and effect relationships that drive the outcomes we attain. Working in the field of education, that interest has caused me to look deeply into the way individuals learn and how different modes of teaching [...]
Revisisting Deming
Most people who have been through basic management or quality management training will have been exposed to the work of Edwards Deming. Known particularly for his work in helping Japanese companies establish a quality culture, Deming is regarded as a founding father of the quality movement. Although Deming is best known for his use of [...]
The Process Fallacy
As many readers will know, the idea of “continual process improvement” is a pillar of the quality management movement. By improving processes, the root cause of problems that allow mistakes to be made can be eliminated, thereby allowing the organization to produce higher quality goods and services. Although the idea of continual improvement started in [...]
Steering Clear of Shoddy
Although home renovation projects and IT projects may not appear to have much in common, there is one regard in which they are striking similar, both suffer from undesirably high failure rates. In Canada, TV personality and master contractor Mike Holmes draws attention to failed home renovations projects in his show “Holmes on Homes”. Each [...]