Author: David Cotgreave
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Managing IT Projects: Respond Don’t React
In IT Projects, when something unexpected happens, I get better results when I respond, than when I react. You may have sussed this for yourself ages ago but my epiphany, strangely, came when I met a St John Ambulance community first responder. He was telling me about a traffic accident that he’d attended. He was…
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Who needs a PMO?
I was reminded of an old Monty Python sketch today. Did you ever see Life of Brian? One of the characters Reg, played by John Cleese, asks “What have the Romans ever done for us?” One by one, other characters pipe up with loads of suggestions … medicine … roads … public order … Eventually,…
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How to deal with what wasn’t in the IT project handover
Have you ever taken on an IT Project, only to find that a major challenge either wasn’t mentioned in the handover from the departing Project Manager or, if it was, it was implicit – not explicit. It’s like those horror movies where a family buys a house only to find out, after they move in,…
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Straight Talk on Project Management VOLUME II – Free E-Book
With the success of my first eBook, I am delighted to publish Volume II. The book covers a wealth of topics from Stonseed’s Project Management as a Service and our IT services, to an array Project and Programme Management issues. Volume II of Straight Talk on Project Management is now available for download as an…
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WARNING! Don’t ignore the IT project warning signs
I was sitting on the M1 in traffic the other day, the gantry lights above were displaying a huge red X above the inside lane, signifying that it was closed due to an accident. Most cars got over into another lane as soon as it was safe for them to do so. However, three lorries…
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How to be assertive and why IT project leaders must be
“Beware of Jim, he’s a bit of an ogre!” I was once warned about a project leader at a new firm I had joined. Jim wasn’t the chap’s real name, by the way, and “ogre” wasn’t quite the word that was used. Anyway, it turned out that “Jim” wasn’t really an “ogre”. He was just…
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Are the greatest IT Change Managers now facing the greatest change?
Originally published on CIO.com “As IT Project Managers we’ve managed some change over the years,” one of my oldest IT Project Management friends said in an email this week. “Now it’s us facing a great change and if we don’t we’ll become increasingly irrelevant.” In spite of this seemingly negative line, the theme of his…
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Still haven’t found what you’re looking for?
Need an alternative to IT project apps? The Project Management app market seems to be saturated, each promising that theirs is the definitive solution. It’s like diets and self-help books! If each is so great why do we need so many? It does make choosing the right one very hard. Of course, no two IT…
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Why IT Project Managers must strategically up-skill
Project Managers need to strategically upskill to deliver the business value needed in the future. This is the key take home from a survey from AXELOS ahead their Summer reboot of PRINCE2. “Organisations will demand greater business awareness from project managers in the next few years. As a result, project managers need to invest in…
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7 Dysfunctional Beliefs of IT Project Management
This journey started with sprouts. Run with me. My epiphany came last Christmas when I asked a family member why, having peeled the sprouts, she was now cutting a little cross into the base of each one. Her answer was, “I don’t know, it’s just what my Mum always did.” We Googled it and it…
