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 [...]
In my last blog I wrote about the one simple thing most SES officers get wrong with programmes and projects: they don’t think about programmes and projects as organisations. This observation generated quite a lot of interest, and so this month I’d thought I’d share with you what happens when SES officers are given [...]
There is one simple thing most SES officers get wrong with programmes and projects, and it is this: they think about them the wrong way. Common Misconceptions Whenever I mention to that I specialise in programme and project management to senior executives, it is always interesting to see what kind of responses I get. [...]
To The Fourth of July (excerpt from Poem by Swami Vivekananda) Behold, the dark clouds melt away, That gathered thick at night, and hung So like a gloomy pall above the earth! Before thy magic touch, the world Awakes. The birds in chorus sing. The flowers raise their star-like crowns— Dew-set, and wave thee [...]
I was delighted to attend the Prime Ministers address to the APS in the Great Hall of Parliament House last week, and before I say anything else I must congratulate IPAA for arranging such a tremendous event. It is impressive that over 13 secretaries and heads of agencies attended. In his address the PM [...]
I am pleased to have been a contributor to the report “Learning from Failure”1 by Professor Peter Shergold AC, which was published in early February 2016. On page one of the report he says: “Leadership begins with finding the courage to say, ‘I accept personal responsibility for contributing to the failure to which I [...]
In my last blog “This is why Digital Transformation Coordinators can’t sleep…” I pointed out that if you are a Digital Transformation Coordinator (DTC) you have a big role to perform. One of the first duties of a DTC is to develop a Digital Transformation Plan. I’d like to offer a few tips on [...]
Here are three typical responses to the question “where are you with programme and project management?”: All our project managers are (say) PRINCE2®-qualified and we have a full set of templates on the intranet that they have to fill in. We’re given much theory and not enough about how to really do it. The [...]
We are all very familiar with the childhood phrase “have we got there yet”? Whilst most of us associate that question with our childhood it is a question we should continue to ask for the rest of our life. Whilst the child in an exasperated way is asking have we achieved our goal by [...]
How do I implement MSP? It’s the question that all executives face once they have made the decision to use the framework for programme management. Knowing where to start is the tricky part, so here are some pointers. Why are you doing this? If you don’t know the answer to this fundamental question there [...]
