Month: June 2012

Updating the trough of despair – Do projects always double dip?

On By James KingIn Agile development, Implementation, Observations1 Comment

When I first learned project management we were really into waterfall concepts like crashing the schedule and EVA.  In fact I really enjoyed the process of Pert charts and planning.

But I stated to notice that many difficult things ended up being deferred to “release 2” then “release 2.1” and then “post-release business as usual”.  This actually meant they didn’t get done.  So I was talking to an experienced PM from a consultancy and he introduced me to the concept of “the peak of expectation and the trough of disappointment”.

project troughs

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A prophets of doom workshop

On By James KingIn Implementation, RiskLeave a comment

In the past I have used some pretty dodgy approaches to defining risks in a project, from formal approaches like fault tree analysis through to informal approaches like “the evil genius” and “an international standard for being scared“.

So this article is not really a new one.  It is more a combination of evil geniuses and international standards for being scared.  But I think this workshop should work well when starting any project and particularly small projects with a simple project charter.

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Will the organsiational antibodies destroy your germ of an idea

On By James KingIn Observations3 Comments

Many risks in projects are related to one of two things

  • The idea behind the project is a good one, but you have not thought about the wider impact it has on the organisation; or
  • There are risks within the organisation that will impact your project because of the organisation rather than because of your project

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