Posted by Kevin Brady on Wed 1st January 2020 at 11:00 PM, Filed in Background
Project Management originated in the construction and heavy engineering industries and has developed in a number of ways over the last two decades :-
- It has increasingly become an essential competence by those organisations, which need to effect change in order to prosper and survive.
- Project Management is now increasingly being applied to the improvement of business processes through the implementation and development information technologies.
Despite these chnages there is huge gap between project failure rates experienced in the engineering and construction industries, and the rates of failure experienced in the IT related industries.
Most failure surveys come to the uncomfortable conclusion that annual IT project /programme failure rates are in region of 75% compared to the engineering and construction industry rates of between 10% and 5%.
Much of this difference in relative failure rates can be explained away by the huge differences in project management maturity, in terms of attitudes and approaches between engineering /construction and the newer IT industry’s. Whether we like it or not, IT Project Management has been going through huge “flip flop” gyrations in approach, attitudes and methods every 3 years, based on little more than the word of a consultant and some flimsy industry references claiming to have all the answers to rising costs, high failure rates and poor quality.
This blog has been set-up with the sole purpose of:-
(1) Assessing the true value of differing project management methods and strategies and their ability to consistently deliver IT project successes and, at a corporate level, real efficiency gains in terms of flexibility, cost, quality and maintainability.
(2) Assess the true value of differing IT development methods and strategies in terms of their relative abilities to deliver repeatable project success and improved organisational efficiencies in terms of cost, quality and maintainability.
(3) Developing maturity and commonality in IT project management and development approaches /strategies.
(4) Encourage professionalism within the software industry.
(5) Exposing some of the worst practices in the software industr, with the intention of improving the integrity, standards and respect for IT management professionals.
(6) Project and Programme Managment best practices resource centre.
Kevin welcomes readers of this blog to contribute comments, posts and ideas in the search for “what works”.
We must all try to promote and be vocal about what cultures, methods, approaches and strategies deliver repeatable IT project and programme success, whilst at the same time calling a halt to the growing inefficiencies within IT departments, without having to always resort to the often misguided approach of outsourcing your problems.
Posted by Kevin Brady on Wed 1st January 2020 at 08:00 PM, Filed in Background
With that breadth of experience behind him Kevin is able to offer a range of comprehensive lectures and speeches on a variety of strategic IT matters. In fact we doubt that you’ll be able to find anyone to match Kevin in terms of sheer experience within the fields of IT Project Management and Programme Management.
Not only do we have our own very experienced speakers but we also maintain contacts with some of the UK’s most respected and experienced IT strategists in the UK. If you require a speaker on a particular niche topic related to IT Project /Programme Managment we have a variety contacts in the following fields:
Web 2.0
Ecommerce
Migration Projects
Voice Recognition Technology
MSP Training
Prince 2 Training
For more information on speaking engagements please contact us using the form here.
One of the big complaints about the Conservatives in recent weeks has been a growing concern about their lack of policy. I believe this is very much a real issue for the Tories and in some ways I believe they have been unfairly slated. To be fair the other parties are just as bad and aren’t showing their policy cards either. At the moment politics seems to be all about themes and no substance. However, state IT reform is an area where the Conservatives have clearly revealed some excellent Government IT policy intentions.
Today I decided to call Conservative Central Office and see if I could get details of the Conservatives IT policy. I have to say the policy statement I received was clearly drafted by someone with real world knowledge and experience of the problems which have faced government IT procurement in recent years. The policy explained to me was published in their draft document called “Delivering Change” which sets out a draft version of their approach to government IT. This was officially adopted as party policy in December 2009. Fantastic! the policies if implemented are exactly what the IT industry the Project Management profession and the State Deficit need with little downside :-
Read more...
I have been reading over the last few weeks a number of blog articles concentrating on the popular question “Why is the Project and Programme Management profession so lacking in professionalism and capability ?”. Well I have to say having been involved in a Project / Programme Management recruitment programme for one of the big 5 for a year I was surprised to find some not so obvious answers to this question.
To start with our interview and selection statistics were as follows:-
About 25% of applicants failed to answer a standard domain knowledge assessment questionnaire and only 5% of those that passed this part of the interview and selection process actually passed the following scenario based interview where they were required to put together a realistic and achievable Project Management Delivery Solution. The scenario interviews were in my view and my colleagues a really eye opener and perhaps explained why so many IT projects fail each year.
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Last week I had a coffee with an old friend and we got onto the subject of P3O and how important this APMG qualification is currently and how overtime it is only going to become more important as the numbers of organisations setting-up or considering the set-up of Project Office’s, Programme Office’s or Portfolio Office’s (P3O) increases.
The growing problem at the moment is a shortage of experienced PO professionals available for recruitment combined with the lack of a comprehensive best practice book / methodology to make these ambitions a reality. In my view such a book should try to answer the following questions:-
- How to write a PO business case?
- How to sell a PO business case?
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- How to design a PO?
- What are the different PO models together with their Pros and Cons?
- Are there any PO methodologies.?
- What are the different PO processes and sub processes?
- How do you embed PO processes?
- Strategic issues surrounding PO success and failure?
- What really world PO cases studies are around to support answers to the above?
Read more...
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