First let’s touch on the 2020/21 Federal budget. What a whopper! Money, big money, is being thrown at everything. I am not going to suggest that this is not an appropriate strategy in the current situation vis-a-vis: recovery from triple disasters (drought, fire & coronavirus); anomalies in the health system (general, emergency and aged); [...]
I think consulting companies can sometimes gloss up their successes and ignore their more frustrating experiences. Certainly, being a consultant who cares about the outcome can be testing sometimes as it’s not always possible to connect and communicate the keys to success. Or if you do connect with one part of the organisation, there [...]
AXELOS, the custodians of PRINCE2 and MSP have recently published their Power of Professional Certification report into how people perceive and value qualifications. I wanted to write this post as a discussion off the back of the report and delve into some of the topics covered. Professional qualifications (and arguably most assessment based testing [...]
Recently I presented a webinar along side Tom Lynam where we discussed digital transformation and some of the systemic challenges currently faced by organisations. While I got some early feedback that this topic already had a lot of content available, I wanted to write this post to share some of the key items we [...]
A recent survey of over 800 state and federal employees recently conducted by Professor Peter Shergold and highlighted by The Mandarin suggested that nearly three-quarters of public servants believe the public service is too hierarchical. I agree. There is a very simple way to translate this disquiet into a dramatic increase in management capacity [...]
“Hello, welcome to the ICT area, may I take your order please?” “Hi there, I’d like a large digital transformation, with big data, plenty of agile, and I want it now” “Would you like some Benefits with that?” “Errr, sure, why not – get someone to cook them up and put them in a [...]
“This is what the Minister wants – that’s the business case”. I wish I had a dollar for every time a senior public servant has said that to me. It is almost invariably provided as the explanation as to why the project they are directing doesn’t have a business case. It is also almost [...]
“If we have been using MSP® and PRINCE2® in the public service for a while now, why aren’t we getting better at programme and project management?” That was the question out to me by an agency head recently. It’s a great question, and one I thought worth exploring. Are we getting better? My gut-feeling, [...]
“We don’t have time for project management.” “We can’t afford the overhead of PRINCE2, so we use a ‘lite’ version.” “Our SES doesn’t want full MSP.” “We use Agile so we don’t need project management, that’s waterfall.” Over the years I have heard dozens of remarks like this, and while I usually politely smile [...]
While SES officers are critical to effective programme management or project management, the engine room is the community of APS practitioners who have a passion for making these disciplines cornerstones of high quality policy implementation. I was therefore delighted to see the Departments of Finance and Prime Minister and Cabinet have launched a renewed [...]
