Synopsis - Effective 'leaders' know what quality is and feel a sense of responsibility for achieving quality. If a person waffles, waivers or avoids discussing quality, chances are they will not make an effective leader.
It's pretty clear that project success rates are higher where projects have effective leadership and lower where there was either no leader, or where those in the leadership roles didn't discharge their duties effectively. Effective leaders align people, focus people a...
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Training
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...
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You’re hired!
Synopsis: It's simple logic. If you want to thrive in today's job market you have to have the skills employers are looking for.
Perhaps one of the biggest shifts in employment trends in past 20 years has been a growing emphasis on candidates having a "portfolio of skills". While technical knowledge alone was once king, employers are now looking for people with a broader set of skills. A willingness to take ownership of work, the ability to get things organized and the capacity to get things ...
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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 to spark discussion and help individuals and organizations think about what it takes to improve project success rates.
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Cheese and Onion – Frameworks for Analyzing Project Failure
When it comes to improving success rates, the commercial aviation sector has been one of the most successful. In 1930 taking a commercial flight was risky business. When you board a flight today, the chances of an accident taking your life is about 1 in 30 million. Through rigorous accident investigations and a willingness to challenge every facet of the problem, the industry has continually improved its safety record.
Sadly, success rates for the projects in today's businesses are far worse ...
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The Sink Side of “Sink or Swim”
Lesson learned: Quantify a candidate's experience.
Category: Leadership 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 to spark discussion and help individuals and organizations think about what it takes to improve project success rates.
Everyone understands...
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In the news – Project Management on the ascent
Project Management is a field that has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Although the origins of Project Management lie in the field of construction, the value of Project Management is now being recognized by organizations throughout the economy.
Recent data attained from a major Canada wide job posting website demonstrates that growth and shows how the ability to lead successful projects is becoming the must have skill organizations are now looking for. The following data was attai...
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Befuddle, Bewilder and Baffle
In the Project Management world, it’s a refrain that is repeated in almost every training program offered around the world; communicate, communicate, communicate. Despite the fact that students of Project Management are told that as much as 80% of a Project Manager’s time is spent communicating, in most Project Management training courses, as little as 5% of the time is dedicated to the topic of communications. Even then, most courses simply expose students to some basics ideas (such as the send...
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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 here to spark discussion and help individuals and organizations think about what it takes to improve project success rates.
In...
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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 achieve different outcomes.
When we think about training we typically think in terms of training classes, academic courses and the ubiquitous two day workshop. Despite the prom...
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