Assurance for high risk projects
7 years 19 weeks agoWhy do so many governing bodies allow their organisations to embark on high risk projects without insisting on a robust, independent assurance function?
There is nothing wrong with embarking on a high-risk, high-reward project that has the potential to transform an organisation. In fact they are almost mandatory if an organisation is going to leap-frog its competitors and gain a
Standard Deviation for Project Managers
7 years 35 weeks agoStandard deviation is an abstract concept derived from observation rather than calculation or experimentation. The standard deviation (SD, also represented by the Greek letter sigma or σ) is a measure that is used to quantify the amount of variation or dispersion in a set of data values; and is expressed as a quantity defining how much the members of a group
Problems with scheduling practice
7 years 39 weeks agoThis post will briefly look at the three major problem areas affecting scheduling practice:
- The first is most organisations and managers simply choose to ignore the project schedule, in part because they have never worked with a good schedule produced and maintained by an effective scheduler (they don’t know what they are missing) and in part because of lax governance from the
Project Selection
7 years 43 weeks agoDelivering the wrong project on time and on budget with 100% of its scope completed to the defined quality standards is a complete waste of money!
Before value can be created by the traditional project management processes defined in the PMBOK® Guide, the project manager has to be given the right project to manage. But selecting the best of
Wiser Group Decision Making
7 years 45 weeks agoIf ‘two heads are better than one’ why do so many committees make bad decisions?
Ethics is not enough
7 years 52 weeks agoOne of the slow burning issues in Australia (and globally) is the flammable cladding used in lieu of the specified non-flammable cladding on many hundreds of high rise buildings. As a consequence, many of these buildings do not comply with the Building Act and expensive remediation works are required. In Melbourne, there are more than 85 properties where non-compliance with National
Improving the Governance of Projects, Programs and Portfolios.
8 years 4 weeks agoA short while ago I posted a blog that was highly critical of the new ‘Practice Guide for the Governance of Portfolios, Programs, and Projects’. The core of my criticism was the confusion of management and governance (and PMI’s focus on improving management functions); see:
Statistical Uncertainty
8 years 16 weeks agoStatistics drive decisions in every walk of life, including project management. One of the applications of statistics we’ve been exposed to more than once recently is answering the question how many meals to load on a Qantas flight?
Qantas economy cabin seats roughly 300 passengers, dinner has 3 choices on the menu, should the flight load 300 meals distributed by the expected
The Effect of Randomness and Luck
8 years 20 weeks agoIn our last article You are probably wrong about probability we looked at probability[1]. Randomness is a key ingredient in probability, contributes to luck, affects statistics, and can easily be confused for skill or competence!
Luck and
You are probably wrong about probability
8 years 24 weeks agoThis is the first of four articles based on Leonard Mlodinow's book, The Drunkards Walk; looking at probability, in the next article we will look at randomness, and then how this affects everything in project controls and business. For example, does the Rugby
