About John Howarth

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So far John Howarth has created 61 blog entries.

Predicting the future – and the future is now

In September 2020, we foreshadowed the future, writing the following blog: The ABC recently reported that “Commonwealth spending on consulting and labour-hire firms now exceeds $5 billion a year.” Read the full story here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-10/contractors-and-the-public-service-gig-economy/12647956 Tanner James is acutely aware of this situation. For more than two decades, our business has revolved around training [...]

How To Get The Best From Public Service EPMOs

You work in a major public service department or agency.  It has an Enterprise PMO of some description – the team that prescribes programme and project management frameworks, and reports on major initiatives to top-level senior executives. It has been around for a while, and there is a feeling that now is the time to [...]

By |2020-09-29T14:17:13+10:00June 30th, 2020|APS, PMO|0 Comments

Client Spotlight – Part 6 – Proper Planning

Wendy had managed to secure the biggest whiteboard Justine had ever seen – technically it was three whiteboards in fact. “I just borrowed these from the Innovation Hub” said Wendy with a grin as she set to work.She wrote on the three whiteboards as follows: “Planning and doing” said Wendy. “There [...]

By |2019-11-25T23:05:39+11:00November 25th, 2019|Client Spotlight|0 Comments

AgileSHIFT Principles Series Part 3: Change will happen, so embrace it

The third principle to be covered in our AgileSHIFT blog series features the principle “Change will happen, so embrace it”. But before we dive into the principle and how an organisation can test it, we first need to step back and take a wider view of today’s business environment, and explore why both the organisation [...]

By |2020-10-26T11:30:20+11:00November 14th, 2019|Agile Culture, AgileSHIFT, Digital Transformation|0 Comments

Client Spotlight – Part 5 – Planning and Doing

Planning and Doing…On return from lunch Justine felt she had to speak up: “Wendy, I don’t think you’re going to like this, but the simple fact is we need to get cracking here. We can’t just spend all our time planning”. The pressure is on, and the Minister wants to see results. That’s why [...]

By |2019-11-25T23:07:02+11:00October 25th, 2019|Client Spotlight|0 Comments

AgileSHIFT Principles Series Part 2: Challenge the Status Quo

Last month we published the first part in our series covering the five principles of AgileSHIFT, starting with “Tailor your Approach”. If you’d like to catch up on that post (and also have a brief introduction to AXELOS’s latest best practice guidance), you can do so by clicking here. This month’s post explores the next [...]

By |2020-10-26T11:29:01+11:00October 10th, 2019|Agile Culture, AgileSHIFT, Digital Transformation|0 Comments

Client Spotlight – Part 4 – The Car Park

The Car Park… It was Tuesday on planning week, Justine’s fifth week leading the new taskforce. Wendy from the PMO had just arrived to help Justine, Kathy and Mark. She had just listed some questions on the whiteboard. “Who is involved?” Justine said, “that is a big question. There are lots of people, both [...]

By |2019-11-25T23:08:47+11:00September 25th, 2019|Client Spotlight|0 Comments

AgileSHIFT Principles Series Part 1: Tailor your Approach

Transformation is hard; often it is also necessary. This is the mantra behind AgileSHIFT, the latest best practice solution from AXELOS. Today organisations need to continually improve in order to meet customer’s expectations and avoid being disrupted. AgileSHIFT looks to help organisations to change the way they operate to meet this challenge. Like many [...]

Are the best project manager’s specialists or generalists?

The recently published 2019 PPM Benchmark study from AXELOS found that the majority of project managers (54%) felt that in order to be successful in the future, they would need to become more generalist. That compared to only 34% who believed the opposite that they needed to focus on becoming more specialist. This in [...]

Client Spotlight – Part 3 – Planning Week

Planning Week…“I am not about to spend a week filling in your template”. Justine was fighting to control herself. She was angry and frustrated. The PMO Director had invited himself to the taskforce planning week, and had told them that filling in butchers paper wasn’t the way to plan. The first step according to the [...]

By |2020-08-27T04:13:36+10:00August 25th, 2019|Client Spotlight|0 Comments
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