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Posts under ‘Team dynamics’

Fear of Commitment

One of the fundamentals taught in Project Management class is the need to define what the success of the project will look like. Only by establishing a picture of the desired end state are we able to establish project scope properly and make effective decisions about how to manage the project. In Project Management class […]

The Requirements Excuse

Studies into the failure of IT projects almost always make reference to poor requirements as a leading source of failure. Requirements are of course a vital part of any project. Without knowing what you’re building how can you build something of value? Although I agree that getting the requirements right is a central pillar of […]

Push and Pull

Although I’m not a great fan of taking concepts from the manufacturing sector and bending them so they can be applied to the IT sector, the idea of “push” versus “pull” processes is one that is worth considering. The concept of push versus pull comes from the field of lean manufacturing and is used to […]

The Beginner’s Mind

At the recent Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Lisamarie Babik of Menlo Innovations gave an excellent talk entitled “Beginners Mind”. For those not familiar with the expression, the term refers to the open and receptive state of mind that we have when we’re beginners at something. The concept is based on […]

Dismissal, Denial and Disbelief – Wrapup

For earlier parts of this post read : Part 1 – Dismissal, Part 2 – Denial and Part 3 – Disbelief A key question for those leading technology projects is; how do we prevent the Senior Management team from falling into the “Dismissal, Denial and Disbelief” trap? Given the hierarchical structure in most organizations, that […]

Dismissal, denial and disbelief – part 2

For part 1 of this post read “Dismissal” While dismissal is an easy way to bypass dissent at project start up, as work progresses physical manifestations of the underlying problems start to appear. Senior Managers who had dismissed the team’s original concerns often find themselves facing information that shows a worry trend. In a rational […]

Dismissal, denial and disbelief – part 1

Scott Ambler published an interesting survey in 2007. One of the questions asked people if they had ever participated in a project which they knew, right from the start, was going to fail. Of the 538 respondents, 70% answered yes. Even making some allowance for the inaccuracies inherent in any survey, that’s a staggering result. […]

Broken Windows

There is a theory that says that where small indiscretions are ignored, larger indiscretions 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 […]

Mind the Gap

The translation of an organizational need into a technical solution is a technology project’s core. That translation requires detailed knowledge of the organization’s operation environment (and their desired future state) to be married up with the technical skills from which the solution will be created. The size of the gap between those two pools of […]