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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Organizational learning
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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Bait and switch
Lesson Learned: Take control over the key players vendors assign to your contracts
Category: Contract Management
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 organizations think about what it takes to improve project success rates.
In today’s compet...
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Don’t just jump, leap
Lesson learned: Maximizing project throughput.
Category: Resource management / Portfolio management.
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.
Given the rap...
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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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And now – A Message TO our Sponsors
The Sponsorship role is perhaps the most important in a project. The Sponsor owns the project and has a direct responsibility for ensuring that the desired business outcomes are achieved. In discussing project failures with people, one of the common complaints I hear is that the Sponsorship role is either non-existent or weak in their organizations. Ownership of projects is often unclear and no one really champions the project within the organization. Project Managers are left holding the baby a...
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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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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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The Cycle of Failure
After the firefights subside and a troubled project finally draws to a close, many organizations hold an inquiry into what went wrong. In theory retrospectives help identify root causes so that subsequent projects can avoid repeating the same mistakes. In practice, despite the reviews, many organizations find they lurch from one troubled project and onto the next.
In many cases this failure to learn can be traced to the narrow perspective from which reviews are usually done. More often than ...
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