Business Unplugged

November 26, 2010

If you really want to unwind from work I’d recommend our holiday destination a few weeks ago, the Marriot in Taba Heights, Egypt. There was absolutely nothing to do except lie by the pool, watch the sailing boats bobbing around on the blue waters of the Red Sea, and sip drinks at the poolside bar. [...]

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Down With Time Recording Systems!

November 26, 2010

When a department runs multiple projects, it is often difficult to track the time spent on each one. It is then difficult to work out how profitable or cost efficient a particular project has been, as you don’t know how much time and therefore cost can be attributed to it. In various places I have [...]

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Ten Common Misconceptions About Agile

October 28, 2010

Agile Development is a powerful approach, particularly in IT. It can help produce quality products in a quick, efficient manner. On 18th November 2010 in London we are running an evening seminar showing how to implement this method. However persuading people to be “Agile” usually involves overcoming a number of common misconceptions. “We don’t need [...]

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The Anxiety of Change

October 8, 2010

Recently I’ve been working with a UK software house. We’re helping them work in a more efficient, agile manner both in the way they develop their code, interact with their clients and manage their teams and projects. At the outset of our engagement we had a number of meetings to discuss potential ways ahead. What’s [...]

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Critical Chain Project Management – Part 3

September 14, 2010

Finishing the Critical Chain Project Plan Using Feeding and Resource Buffers In Part 1 of this series we looked at a variety of reasons why projects tend to run late and in part 2 we saw how the critical chain approach helps to address these problems. In this article we’ll add the finishing touches to [...]

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What Makes a Project Successful?

September 8, 2010

I was presenting some research recently showing how badly most IT project do. Did you know that a government audit reckons 50% of UK Government IT project fail or that Mckinsey estimates 80% of global IT projects don’t succeed? During the presentation someone asked me to define failure.  I reeled off my usual theoretical answer [...]

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Building Effective Teams – Part 2 Communication

September 3, 2010

Developing Team Communication In Part 1 of this series we introduced a three-layered model to improve team dynamics. The bottom layer focuses on improving relationships within the team, the next layer improves communication and only when these two have been addressed are we ready to move on to the top level; getting the team to [...]

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How to Become A Scrum “Master” – Part 1

August 24, 2010

Agile guru Ken Schwaber says that “[Scrum] is so trivial I sometimes wonder what the big deal is!” When the inventor of the method (although he refuses to take that title saying he just pulled together a number of existing ideas) says this you’ve got to wonder what a whole bunch of training companies cover [...]

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Egg Timers and Personal Productivity

August 12, 2010

Sometimes I find it difficult to get down to large pieces of work, like research, writing and putting together presentations. However a few months ago whilst reading the excellent Oliver Burkeman column (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/oliverburkeman), I came across a very useful idea that has helped me no end. Bizarrely it’s named after a tomato – The Pomodoro [...]

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What Does “Work” Mean to You?

August 6, 2010

Whilst having lunch in the financial district of London yesterday I overheard a conversation between two male office workers. They sat on the table next to me in their suits and ties discussing how tough their respective work environments were. There were tales of late nights and aggressive meetings. Running through the conversation was a [...]

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