TOP Thinking on

Critical Insights (15) The current project methodologies focus project effort on the wrong outcomes, measure them with the wrong KPIs, and then we wonder why they’re not a success.

Critical Insights (14) You Don't Need External Experts - Your Own Staff Have The Deep Smarts To Deliver Extraordinary Results”

Critical Insights (13)

Critical Insights (12) - A series of information processing steps that represent all or part of an end-to-end process.

Critical Insights (11) If you mention the word “Scope” to most people around projects, the first word they think of is “control”. As a result too often projects are scoped too tightly from the outset as part of this ‘control’ mentality, missing large areas of real value because of how the scope is defined.

Critical Insights (10) Most of the attention on projects for the past 20-30 years has been focused on the “how” — principally project management. Methodologies, books, support systems, training and qualifications on project management abound, but the success rate on projects has not increased.

Critical Insights (9) - When you define the project's value equation you enable the Project Governance team to fulfil their true role

Critical Insights (8) - Too often resistance to change is created

Critical Insights (7) Benefits come from change. Therefore, it makes sense that every project should be seen as a ‘change project’.

Critical Insights (6) Project “Success” has three dimensions

Critical Insights (5) - to focus on value you need to define your project's Value Equation™

Critical Insights (4) We don't do business cases to justify the project - we do projects to deliver business cases!

Critical Insights (3) many business cases have headings of “Tangible” and “Intangible” benefits based on this mistaken understanding of the meaning of the word ‘tangible’. “Tangible” correctly means “measurable” i.e., if a benefit is measurable, then it is tangible. If you can measure an increase in your client’s satisfaction or loyalty, then it is tangible.

We take enormous effort to compute the project’s workload, effort and costs for the Business Case. And then we try to find enough benefits to justify the costs or generate a positive ROI or clear the capital hurdle rate to gain approval.

Getting benefits and value from projects is not peripheral or tangential, rather they are the core reason we do projects. Benefits, therefore, should not be "hoped for" or "someone else’s responsibility" to deliver but the main focus and intent of ALL the project's activities.