In today’s competitive marketplace, employee retention is a critical factor in the performance of any business, and the loss of a key employee can have a dramatic impact on the company’s success. Not only do businesses lose intellectual capacity and corporate knowledge when employees leave, but, if not managed carefully, the repercussions of employee turnover [...]
With apologies to Abraham Maslow. While it might be a blinding statement of the obvious, recruiting is not an easy task. Recent personal experience has also confirmed that it can be an exercise in complete and utter frustration, particularly if you have a need to resort to mass market, web-based services such as those offered [...]
Too often project scheduling is overlooked by project managers. Thought of as an administrative task performed by project support or some other administrative role within the organisation; project schedules are created at the beginning of the project and then all too often promptly forgotten about by the project manager. Worst is what comes next; the [...]
There are many aspects necessary to support the successful delivery of projects. One of the key elements is effective governance and sponsorship. Regardless of the project management methodology and tools being employed, and semantics or titles aside, strong leadership and support for the project manager may be the difference between a lethargic underperforming project and [...]
Work life balance is a popular term in today’s first world societies, but is it really an attainable reality or more of a generalistic, politically correct fairy tale? Let’s make a mainstream start on the topic by going straight to Wiki: “Work-life balance is a broad concept including prioritisation between work (career and ambition) on [...]
Mob Mentality has been prevalent in human behavior since people began to form tribes, migrate in groups, and perform cooperative agricultural functions. It describes the behavioral tendency of people to act in unison with the group of which they are a part, an evolutionary adaptation that provides the mechanism for collective intelligence. To ensure a [...]
Stakeholder mapping is a project management tool which enables the project manager to identify the project’s stakeholders and their varying levels of interest in the project as well as their influence and power within the organization. The project manager can then determine how much involvement/communication with different stakeholders will be required. There is a simple [...]
It is estimated that one in three new small businesses in Australia fail in their first year of operation, 2 out of 4 by the end of the second year, and 3 out of 4 by the fifth year, with only approximately 8% of small businesses succeeding beyond five years.1 While there are many possible [...]
In a military context it is often said “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”.1 So it is in project management that the one plan you can guarantee you won’t deliver (at least completely) is the one baselined at the onset of the project. Projects are dynamic in nature and it would be the [...]
In brief, Earned Value Management (EVM) is the analysis of a project’s progress against its scope and schedule, and its costs against the planned budget. The initial project plan will provide a baseline which details critical success factors, tasks and milestones, and the dates by which they should be achieved, as well as costs for [...]
