What’s your employability score?

Featured Article - Synopsis Link to article - What’s your “Employability Score”? For many, job stability is becoming a thing of the past. Mergers, restructuring, out-sourcing, changing technologies, shifting markets or simply a new boss with a different vision, are all sources of churn affecting today's job market. Old roles are being swept aside and transformations in the economy usher in constant changes in the way work is done and who it is done by. For the individual worker the shiftin...

Pride of Workmanship

Posted on November 13,December 15, by admin

Synopsis: The more management focuses on product quality the greater the levels of motivation at the staff level I've written before about how corporate cultures are formed and the massive impact they can have on the outcomes an organization achieves. My hypothesis is that in the longer term organizations with healthy, positive cultures (that are properly aligned with the organization's desired outcomes) are more productive and successful than organizations in which the culture is negative an...

Make your Meeting Worth Having – 5 Tips to Connect with Your Audience

Posted on April 16,December 29, by admin

I recently watched a video on a study centered on improving productivity in the workplace. The top cited problems for work interruptions and lack of concentrated efforts toward producing results while at work were, Managers and Meetings. Upon reflecting on what I now call the M&M factor, I realized it is indeed quite accurate. When I think of going to a place to get some serious work done, I unfortunately do not think of the office and I’m not alone. Managers are one thing, and they have a j...

Corporate Culture – Part 3

Posted on February 19,January 17, by admin

In parts one and two of this series, we've looked how corporate cultures affect the outcomes a project attains and where cultures come from. In this final post in the series we'll look at the mechanisms through which cultures spread and what organizations can do to promote a healthy culture. Pretty much every business leader understands the value of having a positive corporate culture. The state of many businesses however illustrates that not every business leader understands how to shape...

Corporate Culture – Part 2

Posted on January 29,August 18, by admin

Last week I posted thread that outlined some of the different types of corporate culture and started the process of looking into how corporate culture influences project outcomes. In this week's post we'll look at where cultures come from. Part of the reason corporate culture is so poorly understood is because few organizations appreciate how cultures form. Cultures are invisible and they are hard to define. They develop out of ongoing interactions rather than a single moment in time and ...

Corporate Culture – Part 1

Posted on January 23,August 17, by admin

Culture is a powerful force in any human system. It establishes the norms of behavior and acts as a reference point for the expectations we have of each other and ourselves. While we are all used to the idea of culture in our public societies (cultures driven by national identity, religious affiliation, generational groups and /or fashion), culture in the workplace gets less attention. While the phase "corporate culture" is banded around, few organizations really have a grasp of what it is, how ...

What is Project Success?

Posted on February 21,January 28, by admin

"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 none of the projects in the Catalogue of Catastrophe can be regarded as great successes (some resulted in bankruptcies, many were cancelled before completio...

Project Initiation – The Kick-Off Canvas

Posted on October 27,January 17, by admin

The decisions made during project initiation are among the most critical in a project. They set the direction for the project, establish the project's objectives and establish how the project is to be approached. Mistakes made at this early stage can be fatal. Sadly all too many projects do go wrong at this early stage and once a project has set out on the wrong path it can be difficult to rectify the situation without taking a significant write-down on the efforts and costs made up to that poin...

An Essential Question

Posted on March 1,March 1, by admin

When directly asked, most Project Managers recognise that the level of success their project teams are likely to achieve is directly correlated to the team’s ability to make effective decisions. If the team can consistently make good decisions, the chances of success are high. If they make a bunch of bad decisions, the chances of success are greatly reduced. Despite the obvious correlation, the role of decision making in the project environment is generally poorly understood. If we can agree ...

Template Tunnel Vision

Posted on December 21,March 13, by admin

Most organizations have templates for creating project proposals, project plans and other project deliverables. There’s no doubt that templates are a useful starting point when creating documentation. They help ensure consistent presentation and in theory, prompt people into thinking through the different issues relating to the project. Unfortunately, in practice templates sometimes have the opposite effect. Rather than prompting people into thinking, templates sometimes lead to a pattern of ...

Why Do Projects Fail?

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