Innovation and creativity are often considered to be interchangeable ideas. And there is a strong sense that creativity is a product of inspiration and sudden insight. The belief is that creativity needs to be allowed to happen, and that attempts to manage creativity are inappropriate, stifling and unnecessary. At the same time, the vast majority…
Continue reading »

Fewer things inspire fear and dread than the prospect of a project being audited. Audits are seen as being painful, intrusive and unrelentingly negative. They are viewed as finding fault, fostering blame and foisting responsibilities on an already overworked project management team. “You don’t want to do that or the auditors will get you for…
Continue reading »

Mindful senior managers need to “wake up” to the fact that only 30% of US workers are fully engaged in their work; only 15% of workplaces inspire real employee enthusiasm and an even smaller number can actually lay claim to the assertion that they are “great” places to work, because employees trust managers.  More disturbingly,…
Continue reading »

It’s not something we like to talk about, especially when we’re discussing organizational culture, but FEAR—of all shapes, sizes and sources—exists in the world, as well as hallowed halls of cubicles. Given that it does exist (we have far too many examples of it to deny), what should we do about it, if anything? On…
Continue reading »

The PMP certification examination is changing on 1 November 2015. If you have your PMP already, this may be a point of more casual interest. For those of you actively thinking of getting your PMP, you are going to want to pay more careful attention. What’s driving the change to the examination is a new…
Continue reading »

Most organizations want to deliver effective customer service. Far fewer organizations truly deliver on that promise. Delivering exceptional customer service is not an easy undertaking. It’s not something that can be required, demanded or even expected. It’s something that needs to be inspired and nurtured. More important—and more challenging—is getting everyone to embrace and commit…
Continue reading »

Uncertainty in projects is a fundamental reality. And yet the traditional tools of project management emphasize planning and control, assuming away many of the challenges and resignedly dealing with the rest as risks. Organizations still take on large and complex initiatives, one where there is no clear solution or well defined path to get there….
Continue reading »

Project management is all about planning and control. Plan the work, and work the plan. The problem is, this only works well when you know exactly what you are producing, and can fully define the process of getting there. While this is possible for many projects, it is not possible for all. This is not…
Continue reading »

Every change initiative, in every organization, regardless of scope, has something in common. A desire to improve something. It doesn’t matter if we’re installing a new inventory control system; implementing a new quality control process; or relocating an office. At the core, these are fundamentally the same tasks – we’re all trying to make something…
Continue reading »

This month our webinar will be a little different. But we don’t launch books every month, as a rule, so it seemed like a good idea. Mark Mullaly’s latest book, Exercising Agency, has just been published by Gower. This book takes on the challenge of translating his doctoral thesis into human-readable form. It also provides…
Continue reading »