Trends in project management 2011

I gave a free briefing on the future of project management today that identified key trends for the project management profession:Portfolio ManagementPortfolio management techniques are being used by senior management to create an organisation wide summary of all the projects and programmes that are taking place, usually with the intention of removing a larger number as part of their cost cutting

Aligning project and change management practices

Have just spent 2 days with 150 project managers and change managers at the Association of Change Management Practitioners European Conference. Key topic has been the integration of change management into project management.Although effective project managers accept that making sure what they deliver is successfully implemented is within the scope of the project lifecycle a lot of project

Back to work and under pressure

There is a real ‘back to work/rushed off our feet’ buzz at Maven this week so we are trying to work smarter to fit everything in. One technique is to move as much as possible into ‘housekeeping mode’ i.e. turn tasks into regular actions that are carried out in the same way every time. The reason for this is that I want to reduce the time we take to do simple tasks so that we free up more time to

Is new X Factor judge a natural leader?

Watching X factor last night was an interesting example of leadership. Louis Walsh, the only remaining judge from previous seasons could reasonably have been expected to take the 'head judge' place at the table and show the 'newbies' how it is done. However, from the first audition it became apparent that Gary Barlow was the true leader of the judges, with a range of actions and behaviours that

New resource materials

August can be a useful month for taking stock on the achievements of the year and catching up with all the research and latest trends in our areas of business. For those of you involved in project, programme, portfolio, risk and change management I thought I would share some of the most useful articles I have been reading lately – I hope you enjoy them and that they provide food for thought:The 5

Project activity increasing for September

Tonight I am watching two news items: rioting in London and Birmingham; heightening of tension in the financial markets in Europe and the U.S. Part of my job is to try and predict the future and work out what organisations will be concentrating their efforts on in the next 12-18 months. Given the news coverage it is hard at times like this not to be pessimistic and think that the immediate future

Business Transformation

I went to a meeting of the Change Management Institute on Tuesday night which included a presentation from Simon Moran, the Head of Process and Change at London Underground. imon described how over the last 6 years he had been building an internal capability for managing and effectively implementing change. Simon and his team support change initiatives by helping staff understand how people react

Creating the right environment for change

So much of the work that I am currently doing is about transformational change - helping programme managers to define their programmes of transformational change, and helping to establish what needs to be in place for change to happen. One of the critical success factors to effective change is encouraging an environment that encourages everyone to participate and ensures that they are supported

New Quick Guides launched

I get so many questions about how to get started, either by those asked to manage a project for the first time, or those that have been given a change management assignment and are looking for clues about what to do first that I have created a couple of Quick Guides - http://www.maventraining.co.uk/quick-guides/These guides are simple slide presentations that explain the basics, the most common

Today all the excitement in the office is about launching our new free briefing – “How effective is our approach to change management?” http://www.maventraining.co.uk/course-detail/_/free-briefing-how-effective-is-our-change-management/72/It has been designed for people who want to find out:-How to baseline your organisations readiness for change-How to create a change management framework and