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BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
‘Slow project management’ coming out soon
In the world of athletics, runners know that to have a chance of winning they must ‘find their pace. When athletes run too quickly in the early stages of a race they find themselves short of energy as they near the finish. Fatigue has caught-up with them and they lose. Decisions made in the early stages of the run can significantly influence performance in the later stages. These choices offer no certainty but they do provide the elements of strategy and successful execution. Like athletes, project players need to consider energy conservation and speed but here of course there is much more that will set the pace of progress. Players must choose which people and ideas to back and which to shelve; who to watch and who to challenge; when and how to consult the customer; what estimate to accept; when rework is necessary; how diligent to be and when to ‘parachute into’ an issue. What to do and how to do it will always dictate a project’s pace of progress.
Every choice will impact the pace of progress and there is little certainty. Critical choices are the elements for managing risk and to shape successful enterprise. The book shows the project practitioner some of the critical choices that determine a project’s pace of progress and likelihood of success. For the practicing project professional, critical choices centre on
• The maturity of a project regime as a professional community and culture
• Players’ behaviour in conducting the work and their usage of methodology
• The quality of working relationships between a project regime and its host
• The capacity of a regime to adapt to emergent and enforced changes
• The extent and quality of players’ resolve, organisation and conversation
• A regime’s resolve to occupy the ‘Value Zone’ of an enterprise.
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