Author Archive

As Chris Walters writes in the foreword to my new book ‘Leading Successful PMOs’ (Gower) – ‘The role of the PMO leader is one for a particular breed of individual. Be clear: this is a very senior position in any organisation that takes project delivery seriously – the days of co-ordinating project administrators are over. PMO...
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Ability to evaluate and judge – such is the essence of project leadership and decision making. Capacity for original and productive thought – problem resolution and the comparative analysis of options is a constant need in good project management. So in all aspects the project demands the intelligent project manager. But what else is required to support...
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  ‘It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.’ Albert Einstein There are probably as many definitions of intelligence as there are experts who study it. Simply put, however, intelligence can be described as the ability to learn about, learn from, understand, and interact with one‘s environment. This general...
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So all in all we have a lot to be both proud and happy about; so let‘s be proud and happy about it! Being a project manager is a great job, whether you intend on pursuing a project management career or whether you intend to move in to a business role within a project based...
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Mission Impossible Mission: Impossible was an American television series which chronicled the missions of a team of secret American government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force (IMF). The leader of the team was Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, except in the first season, during which the leader was Dan Briggs, played by Steven...
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What should the theme tune be for all project managers? I recently ran a survey to find out the answer to this critical question and all of you PMs out there in project management world climbed aboard the bandwagon and voted in your thousands. At the end of stage one of the LinkedIn discussions I had...
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‘Our customers really love us, so they don’t care if their projects are late and don’t work.’ Is this what you think? Is this what your project ‘customers’ are really saying? How about this? ‘We figure it’s more profitable to have 50% overruns than to spend 15% on project management to prevent them.’ Do you ever get...
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‘We don’t need no education; we don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom, teachers leave them kids alone. Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!’  So goes the lyrics from the classic Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 (R. Waters)  But we all know that we do need...
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How many people know what you do? Beyond your fellow project managers and outside of your close family, who really understands what ―being a project manager is all about? Possibly even your close family wave you goodbye each day without really understanding what you actually do. Taking project management ―out of the box will spread...
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I recently watched a programme, Coast on the BBC, about the Caledonian Canal in Scotland; so that counts as a water based activity (sort of). Today the Caledonian canal is described as 60 miles of Scottish Highland splendour amid outstanding unspoilt scenery. Slicing through the Great Glen, this majestic canal is considered by many as...
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