In today’s economy, every company and organisation is struggling to do more with less, and performance is paramount. This is true for public and private sector entities, as well as for non-profits. Which is why, in order to prevail in lean times, it’s essential to optimise every operation of your organisation, especially the project management office (PMO).

It should be readily apparent that no organisation will succeed if its projects are not managed effectively—on time, within budget, and delivering stated business outcomes for clients, whether they are internal or external. Your PMO should be an integral component in your organisation’s project management practice, and should be delivering results that are critical to business and mission success. Accordingly, a careful analysis of the “state of current practice” of your PMO is extremely valuable in identifying areas for improvement and in ensuring that you’re delivering the highest level of value expected. Read more

Only a third of all projects were successfully completed on time and on budget over the past year – the worst failure rate recorded by the Standish Group’s CHAOS report. 

Observations of the Project Practitioners

There can be many reasons attributed to project failure but one of the reasons that crops up time after time is a direct result of project managers failing to implement scope control and failing to identify the correct requirements as part of their project management methodology. Project management success relies on excellent planning and meticulous follow-up and control throughout its duration.  Read more

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 business. Projects should never bore you, they are all different and each day will bring new challenges and interest. You will never stop learning those lessons.

Finally reach out with what you do.

Consider doing some or all of the following in order to help yourself (and project management in general) out of the box: Read more

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 Hill.

A hallmark of the series shows Phelps receiving his instructions on a tape that then self destructs, accompanied by the iconic theme music composed by Lalo Schifrin. I am pretty sure these days Health & Safety would not allow that but as a youngster it seemed a pretty exciting moment – instructions received and destroyed to protect the team. Read more

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 187 suggested tunes and by the end of the full campaign over 200 tunes. No one can argue that the project management musical taste was not a full and varied one for sure!

There was even a purpose built (or rather penned) offering in the shortlist from ‘Mr IPM Day’ himself, Frank Saladis – The Project Manager Blues. Beyond that we had suggestions ranging from classical to heavy metal and through punk and new wave and many more, such as ‘Bob the Builder’ and ‘The Muppets’ theme tunes. Read more

In Part 2 and 3 of this posting we were looking at the first two key strategies for shaping tomorrow’s workforce which are: learning programmes must be more results-orientated and learning methods must be more flexible and content more relevant.

Here we will reveal the final key strategy as well as out concluding remarks.

KEY STRATEGY 3: AN EMPHASIS ON LEADERSHIP SKILL DEVELOPMENT MUST INCREASE

To support global workforce productivity and agility, organisations report the increasing need to develop leadership capabilities in their employees and cite a growing priority to improve skills in stakeholder management, interactive communication and effectiveness in a cross-functional team environment. Read more

In Part 2 of this posting we outlined the first key strategy for shaping tomorrow’s workforce which highlighted that learning programmes must be more results-oriented.  Here we will look at the second key strategy.

KEY STRATEGY 2: LEARNING METHODS MUST BE MORE FLEXIBLE AND CONTENT MORE RELEVANT

In today’s economy, survey respondents are increasingly focused on maximising their training investments and seeking options that minimise down time, acknowledge different learning styles, and can be customised to meet specific business needs without sacrificing quality.

To achieve flexible and relevant content, respondents are deploying blended learning solutions that mix assets, expand beyond the classroom and deliver content when and where needed to compensate for limited training funds and the need to maximise a learner’s time on the job. Read more

Looking at the Numbers—Trends in Learning

The Learning Trends survey results confirm the changing requirements of successful performance improvement initiatives, as respondents noted the following priorities for the achievement of positive learning outcomes.

• Overall and overwhelmingly, organisations report that innovative learning solutions (70 percent) are needed to accomplish their business objectives.

• Regarding professional development solutions, the majority of organisations report that their learning programmes must evolve and support a variety of learning modalities (71 percent) and be delivered through blended solutions (57 percent). Read more

According to The Economist, if the 1990s was the age of abundance, then the 2010s may well be the age of scarcity. In both the private and public arena, the order of the day is trimming waste, tightening budgets and identifying efficiencies to ‘do more with less.’ In this lean environment, how do leaders responsible for learning programmes adjust and adapt their human capital initiatives?

To assess the direction of training and performance improvement programmes for 2011 and beyond, ESI International conducted a global learning survey directed at a cross-section of commercial and government leaders. Read more