Turning Round Struggling Tech Programmes

Cognitive dissonance, dental hygiene, and why you should seek out your friendly security gal (or guy).

I actually quite like Prince 2. It takes me back to the 1990’s and Britpop and cheerier, more optimistic times. As a project management method though it does have quite a few problems. Nothing wrong with stage containment as a way to manage risk, but endless debates about roles and reams of paperwork… not so much. I wish I could produce the perfect PM method, but alas I fear that will never happen. There are just too many different business problems, cultures & technologies to capture neatly in one place. And there are nuances and contradictions and paradoxes.

Keeping the end in mind seems to me to be a pretty good maxim for any tech programme. How will the benefits be sustained when the initial programme objectives have been met? How will day-to-day operations fit within the wider organisation? How will the solution be further improved?

Agile. Has a word had more interpretations, more connotations, more expectations? When the pioneering souls first wrote down the Agile Manifesto – a simple but deceptively subtle definition of what agile means – little could they have realised how the concept would be used and sometimes misused over the subsequent years.

Team Building. Anyone who has worked in corporate life will, at some stage, have been on a Team Building Exercise. Well meaning, sometimes fun, often teeth grindingly awkward and mostly useless. Yet most of us know that a great team with everyone pulling in the same direction can do amazing things.

Google have truly been the business success story of the 21st century. In his book “Work Rules”, Lazlo Bock who was a senior HR VP there, gives a fascinating account of how Google created a very powerful people-centric culture.

Sometimes words get used so much it is easy to lose sight of their true meaning. Simon Sinek wrote a brilliant book called Start With The Why. It makes a lot of sense doesn’t it, you need to have a good view of why you’re doing something to know whether it’s worthwhile, right?

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional” wrote Haruki Murakami in the book from which I have shamelessly ripped off the title for this series of articles.