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How to break the Iron Law of Megaprojects
The Iron Law tells us megaprojects are doomed to fail. But history shows they don’t have to. By anchoring vision, aligning every stakeholder, and embracing complexity rather than fighting it, we can rewrite the ending.
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Fast Breaks and Gantt Charts
After 30+ years of portfolio, program and project management, it felt good to encounter a new discipline that brought fresh perspectives and give me new insights on how to lead great and successful winning teams.
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A parable for failed project management, and how to find success …
Working with a team, managing a successful one, and leading for success allhave at their core a similar problem. How do we ensure that all team membersview the project — the drawbacks and the benefits — with the same insights andunderstanding? This is the Blind Men and their elephant problem. In the classic Indian tale,…
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Better vendor management through program management
The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) defines vendor management (also known as supplier relationship management) as the process that “involves reviewing the portfolio of suppliers, categorising supply relationships by their significance, devoting resources in proportion to the relationship’s significance and managing processes between the parties torealise the relationship objectives.” Traditionally procurement is a…
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46 ways to save costs and add value as an IT program manager
I am often asked for guidance on costs overruns — and not necessarily at theend of projects. Often projects heading south are in the middle of their execution phase whenthe program manager or project manager “does the right thing” and calls it out. But with customers demanding ever-tighter schedules and expandingscope, controlling and reducing costs…
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What program managers can learn from NASA
When people think of NASA, they tend to think of the moon landings and the enormous benefits mankind has received from the side effects of the space But there is another great benefit of NASA that you might not be aware of: better program and project management.
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Introducing creativity to achieve better project outcomes
Whereas project teams and project methodology are understood and there is broad agreement on their usefulness in implementation, there is still no agreement on how to spur and nurture creativity in a business environment. So with little research and no agreement, how can we as program and project managers encourage project creativity for better project…
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How conflict can successfully be used to improve team performance …
Forming, storming, norming and performing is a well-known team building process. But can we harness the disruptive power of conflict to produce better outcomes for our business?
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Making meetings work for you and your project
I can remember very clearly the worst meeting I was ever involved in. A “flagship” municipal project with the potential to bring world admiration to a city. This new project needed new IT systems. So 44 of us sat in a room together — architects, engineers, program and project managers, business analysts, change managers,…
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Thank VUCA for project management!
With the end of the Cold War in the 1990s and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the post-World War II order had crumbled and we found ourselves in a new multi-polar world. To characterise this new state of affairs, the U.S. military developed the term VUCA, standing for the four conditions of Volatility, Uncertainty,…
SquaringTheTriangle 