“Can you be here for 9.30?” “Yes, that’s no problem,” I reply. “With the Eurostar it’s less than three hours.” This is the official line: from leaving the Eurostar terminal at Gare du Nord to arriving at Waterloo International is less than three hours. But who has a meeting at Waterloo station? Once you add…
It’s international women’s day, a moment to reflect on the state of affairs for women around the globe. In my world, an office move has left us pretty badly off: we used to have two toilets between seven women and now we have four toilets between twenty-three. I’ve not had to queue yet but I’m…
So I got tagged by Christine Kane. Which means I have to come up with five reasons why I blog. After not very much thought, here are my reasons: 1. Because I wrote a book Many bloggers start off by web publishing and then move into traditional publishing, in the Petite Anglaise and Random Acts…
I’ve been doing some research into why projects fail for a TV programme (more on this later – we are filming in May) and it seems that the unsuccessful project is unfortunately much more common than we would all like to believe. However, there is also a perception problem. I’ve been interviewed recently about the…
Setting up a project is easy: anyone familiar with MS Project will be able to navigate around without problems. The main part of the screen shows the task list and Gantt chart. All the standard functionality is there: managing resources, costs, dependencies. I particularly like the semi-transparent way the duration bars on the gantt chart…
I am a big believer in the value of transferable skills, which is why I find the French education system so hard to understand. Essentially, you need to take business studies and do a business degree to have any hope of getting a decent job in an office. For me, university was (and is –…
Sometimes it is not the work that makes work difficult, nor the people. Today the challenge that made my day more difficult than usual was something much more mundane: the arrival of a new telephone. It came with a three-fold leaflet explaining how to do a multitude of things, except set up my voicemail. A…
When I was young I vowed never to be a ‘cabbage yakker’. That is, a woman who talks about the price of cabbages as if they were the most important thing in the whole world. I’m sure there are women for whom cabbages are very important, but I didn’t want to be one of them….
I heard from the publishers today that the first copies of Project Mangement in the Real World have come off the press and are looking great. If you’ve pre-ordered a copy, it should be on its way out to you shortly. There won’t be a blog entry next Monday as I’ll be speaking at the…
Following my (rather dismissive) comments about recognition breakfasts for project managers on Projects@Work (no longer available), I thought it would be interesting to consider what breakfast choices are available to the busy PM, in case anyone close to me feels like laying on a recognition breakfast in my honour to celebrate International Project Management Day…
The kind folks at the British Computer Society are throwing a bash for me to launch my new book, Project Management in the Real World. I give an entertaining yet informative speech for around 45 minutes, then take questions from the floor, pose for photos and sign any copies people feel inclined to buy. Then…
I was given a fab new wheelie suitcase as a gift at the weekend, which is great as I seem to be doing a lot of travelling at the moment. On the way to the UK at the weekend I found myself sitting next to a guy in a leather jacket. He obviously wasn’t taking…