New country (well, returning to the one I left). New city. New department. New commute. My relocation went pretty well, all things considered, although Hans’ confidence in my ability to get everything to the right place was a bit optimistic. I had to buy a new hairbrush, as mine is in storage somewhere. I also…
I’ve been tracking down examples for project failure, mainly in the UK, and Tom “Bald Dog” Varjan contacted me with some reasons why he thinks projects are unsuccessful. His points are really interesting, so I thought I’d share them with you. Tom’s business cards introduce him as “Bald Dog, Organisational Provocateur,” so I’m sure that…
I’m glad I’m not the project manager tasked with trying to make sense out of the US Transport Security project. Can you imagine? All those different US Government agencies pitching in with their ideas. One of the case studies for my book was about the difficulties two US Government departments had trying to agree how…
I’ve been looking at projects that fail, and am in two minds about whether to include projects that get stopped. If it’s stopped, has it failed? Or was closing it down the right response, so the business has successfully avoided the cost of completing something that wasn’t worth it? Research commissioned by Microsoft shows that…
I ruined another perfectly good pair of tights today. This is an office problem that men don’t have – at least, none of the men I’ve worked with. Women earn 17% less than men in full-time roles, and we have a greater burden when it comes to clothes. How is that fair? Tights don’t seem…
“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…