Who cares what the number of the reason is? I made it up anyway. This post is about how to stop projects failing. Or at least, how to lessen the chances of your project failing. And the solution is … keep on top of things. Sounds banal, but it most certainly is not. Read on [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Project Management category.
Simple Planning Tool
All projects should be run properly with due regard for objectives, deadlines, budgets – all that good stuff. Some projects are big and complicated and need detailed plans to make sure they work. Then there are some smaller projects which don’t need the big tools, and to use those big tools would be serious overkill. [...]
Projects course
Yesterday I delivered ‘Running Successful Projects’ in London. A good say. For some reason only a small number of delegates on this course which allowed lot of time for discussions and swapping experiences. You don’t get that with larger numbers, but you do get more different experiences to share. Where to strike the balance? I [...]
Keeping good notes
One of the features of many projects is lots of stuff going on at once. It’s what makes project management fun! One of the downsides to this is that there’s … lots of stuff going on. And you need to keep on top of it all. Can I strongly suggest keeping a logbook? A hardback [...]
Why cashflow forecasts are so important
… and how to put a cashflow forecast together There are many articles about putting budgets together. This one is a little different. In this article I assume you have worked out the budget for your scheme, and I want to take you a stage further and emphasis the importance of putting together a cashflow [...]
Stealing ideas from commerce
These days, charities are expected to behave more and more like businesses. Certainly the big charities effectively are businesses, some of them multi-million pound turnover businesses. And all charities have to operate effectively, in order to attract funding (let's be blunt) and to deliver to their clients. So what about nicking good ideas that have [...]
The heck with it, let’s just do it!
There's no doubt in my mind that good solid project management methods make it more likely that your project will succeed. But doesn't sticking to the rules mean that organisations can get bogged down in procedure and lose the spark? I say no. If you're in receipt of a grant (from wherever) then you owe [...]
Let’s be geeky about Christmas
Greetings. At this time of year, the TV is full of cookery shows showing us how to make the perfect Christmas dinner. Funny how the 'perfect' dinner is different depending on which celebrity chef you're watching….. But I digress. The point I'm vaguely wandering up to is that your Christmas dinner is a project and, [...]
Why projects fail – part 4
And finally …. Project runs late/budget exceeded Any project is a balancing act between time, cost, and of course quality. Cost and time are clearly related, and there are a million reasons why they come up so frequently. If I had to choose, I'd say the two most common problems come from optimistic estimating and [...]
