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 week Mike visits a home owner who has been the victim of a shoddy contractor and exposes the poor workmanship they left behind.
The problems in the home re...
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Quality Management
Template Tunnel Vision
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 ...
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Broken Windows
There's a theory that says that where small indiscretions are ignored, larger ones will follow. The theory, known as the “broken window” effect, is most often illustrated using crime as an example. The argument says that if a building has broken windows and those windows are left unattended, the presence of the broken glass will encourage vandals to break more windows. If repairs are still not carried out, the message to the community is that no one really cares and that then leads to an escalat...
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