David Cotgreave
Written Articles
It’s ironic that few people ‘remember, remember’ the second line of this English folk verse about the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 … a reminder …
“Remember, remember, the 5th of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot.
Would Guy Fawkes et al have made good project managers? The answer is certainly NOT.”
For fun, in this blog let’s “post-mortem” the Gunpowder plot, as we might a failed IT Project, who knows there might be some actual lessons that we can learn. (SPOILER: THERE WILL BE!).
As I write, we are clearly coming into cold and flu season! Television and radio are full of adverts for over-the-counter medicines for coughs, blocked noses and sore throats and my social media feeds are full of home-made remedies – green ginger wine, rum, honey, boiling water, chilli, 2 drops each of rosemary and eucalyptus […]
Many business change initiatives are IT Projects these days and for charities, where resources are limited, effective deployment and delivery can mean the difference between success and failure.
In business and IT Project delivery, it’s not just the uncertain and challenging weather to prepare for – a season of uncertain tax and business costs is looming on the horizon too. Is your business and its IT project team ready for the storm?
In 15 years Stoneseed has revolutionised the project-resource-on-demand market with our Project Management as a Service (PMaaS) resourcing model and our P3MO platform (which appropriately leans heavily into Microsoft’s project tools that are, arguably, direct results of Nadella’s change of culture).
Do you find that you don’t have or can’t find talent with the exact skills to deliver your IT Projects? As projects become more complex are you struggling to juggle relationships with an ever-snowballing cast of stakeholders? Are the Projects in your portfolio increasingly outside your core expertise? Are your IT Projects now driving business change to the point that YOU now directly influence the future of your business? Are your budgets and deadlines tighter and yet stakeholder expectations greater than ever? Are you finding that your IT Projects necessitate pulling talent away from already assigned duties?
As if talent gaps and shortages, ever increasing demands, and ever mounting pressure (on return on investment, budgets and timescales) were not enough – IT Project resourcing managers are facing a new challenge!
OOO!!! The “out of office” season!!!
I say “new”, let’s be honest, it’s a seasonal, recurring, annual challenge and one that, despite this, we never seem prepared for! I swear time speeds up between holidays.
We invest a lot of time, energy and budget on the “self-care” of our IT projects, in terms of robust governance, strong PMO (Project Management Office) and world-class processes, etc – but do we pay enough attention to our individual or team’s self-care?
Given the anecdotal stress, work-overload and burn-out in our industry, I’m thinking – NO.
How an IT Project Management team handles and learns from mistakes and setbacks can significantly impact success, not just for the current project but across your whole current portfolio – and future projects too.
A Stoneseed BA’s day will vary depending on the client’s requirements and project type. Whether it’s an Agile, Waterfall or Hybrid environment and whether its product, Infrastructure, software or digital transformation project for example. The life of a Stoneseed Ba is very varied, on this particular day, it is a for a client who is delivering an Agile software upgrade and development project.