My daughter and I are currently reading Lemony Snicket’s very entertaining “Who Could That Be At This Hour?”, a book in the series of “All The Wrong Questions”. And there is a constant refrain I think is very useful: The map is not the territory. The book tells the story of Mr Snicket’s apprenticeship as … Continue reading
Most project teams I work with prioritise their work in a simple order: most important, second most important, etc. But sometimes people still use the MoSCoW method, and I find this leads to problems. MoSCoW stands for Must, Should, Could, Won’t—it’s a way of categorising deliverables into one of four buckets. The Musts get done … Continue reading
Previously I wrote about the importance of having a clear goal, in the form of a value statement. But in practice it’s tempting to confuse a goal with what I call a “strategic assumption”—and we shouldn’t do that. When I ask a project team what their goal is they usually suggest a number of things, … Continue reading
There are lots of things that make an effective team, but one of the most important, I’ve found, is to make sure they have a clear and meaningful goal. Part of this is to separate the goal (or the benefit, or the value) from the way they’ll achieve it (the solution), and then make them responsible … Continue reading
There are many ways to measure a plan’s quality. Some of these are: flexibility, how realistic it is, and the number of internal or external dependencies. But in the end for most people a plan is about delivering some end result within some stated time. A plan shows both approach and time—How and When. It … Continue reading
Last week I saw a presentation from Bjarte Bogsnes of Statoil, at a meeting about Beyond Budgeting, which offers “a management model that is more empowered and adaptive [and] releasing people from the burdens of stifling bureaucracy”. Part of they ethos of Beyond Budgeting is to bring decision-making back to the people who have direct … Continue reading
I sometimes feel a small sense of wonder at how revealing complexity can actually help, rather than hinder, problem-solving. This complexity can be revealed by zooming out from a problem and looking at the bigger picture. I’ve previously written about how this approach can help us deal with risk and uncertainty better. Or it can … Continue reading
[Update 20 Nov 2018: The very latest version of the Google Sheet for creating burn-up charts is available at Github. It also has detailed instructions. Please go there instead. Otherwise there is a history of articles which are out of date: from 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018.] A few months ago I published an … Continue reading
Like all good project professionals, whenever I’m managing a project I find it’s essential to keep a track of intended and incidental Benefits, Lessons learned, key Actions, and of course Resources. That’s why—in line with the best of my project manager peers—I always keep a BLAR log. Oh, hang on. Let’s try again… Like all … Continue reading
A common distinction made between projects and programmes is that projects deliver outputs (things) whereas programmes deliver outcomes (benefits). I think this is a dangerous separation, particularly in digital projects and programmes today. The view is most evident in the Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) approach, which has been long advocated by the UK government. But … Continue reading
