Stoneseed

3 hands, one of them holding up 1 finger another holding up 2 fingers and the other holding 3 fingers

IT Project decision making: How the best choice between two options can often be the third!

Insights, Programme Management

The “Crucible Moments” podcast is a fascinating listen, especially as Roelof Botha (whose thoughts are the inspiration for this blog) isn’t the main subject. He plays the role of presenter; the main guest is Jack Dorsey (former Twitter CEO who now runs the financial services company Block). The central narrative of the podcast is the evolution of Block from its origins as Square, and how they created Cash App, a ‘third’ option, which is now responsible for half of Block’s revenue. The strategy of expanding the number of options for consideration was instrumental in helping Block identify and eliminate what wasn’t working and focus on more profitable projects.

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An open book with a little animated rocketing flying out from it.

An interesting thought experiment: open-book IT Project Management

Programme Management

Empowerment, autonomy, ownership – these buzzwords have rattled around for a few years now in relation to IT Project talent.

Most project managers, business analysts (etc) would agree that they have the power to schedule their own time, track their own progress and tasks and choose how they work, to some extent. It usually leads to improved performance – after all who knows how to do a job better than the person who does it day-in, day-out?!

What if you could take this improved individual performance and amplify it across your whole project or portfolio?

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A man changing gears whilst driving

Changing our minds – the evolution of IT project strategic thinking and decision making

Insights, Programme Management

Interesting perspective from a Chief Experience Officer, Sandy, on how her organisation is making decisions – “we’re like a car that’s forgotten it has a steering wheel and more than one gear”.

I love this metaphor. I can see the car missing turn offs and short cuts and the noise and smoke from driving along in first gear!

What she means is that when the project team faces a challenge, or has a strategic decision to make, instead of weighing up what the problem really is and what would be best, it is culturally beholden to the in-house resources it already has at its disposal.

Sandy thinks it may be a hangover from the pandemic.

I suppose we all managed with what resources we could lay our hands on, became insular in our thinking, even adopting a scarcity mindset as we adjusted to the changing reality.

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A green book that says Merger and Acquisition on it, laid on top of a desk

How mergers and acquisitions can cement IT as a strategic business partner

Programme Management

Despite the slow economy and provisional estimates which suggested lower mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity at the start of 2023, there were 365 mergers and acquisitions involving UK Companies during Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2023 according to the Office of National Statistics.

There were inward M&A (foreign companies acquiring UK companies) in Quarter 1 2023 was £12.7 billion; and the total value of outward M&A (UK companies acquiring foreign companies) in Quarter 1 2023 was £2.9 billion.

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stop office politics killing your IT projects

7 Silver bullets to stop office politics killing your IT projects

Insights, Leadership

Office politics! Working in IT Project Management, given the profession’s prominent role in the facilitation of business strategy and driving business change, you’d think we’d be above it! Project managers and leaders are among the most intelligent individuals you could hope to work with and yet many IT Projects are still scuppered by workplace politics.

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