Project Management

Over the past 15 years of working in the cybersecurity industry I have been privileged to have worked with highly intelligent, experienced and articulate colleagues. My experiences in large scale transformation programmes, workshops, interviews, managing both project and operational teams encompass consulting and internal business roles. These experiences led to interactions with hundreds of individuals where I have become aware of some consistent and humorous behaviour types displayed. These include eight positive and negative types including:

All too frequently we think of projects in terms of schedules, requirements, budgets, resources and the like. We plan meticulously for them and hold onto the axiom that failing to plan is simply planning to fail. But how many of us actually plan for the human side of a project – the social, emotional and responsive elements of a project?

Let’s face it, we’ve all been in situations where (despite meticulous planning) we hear or say something along the lines of “Hmm! That’s not what I was expecting”, “Oh! I thought you meant this” or “Sorry! I wasn’t aware of that”.

People, Process and Technology are three pillars of change management. In this blog, I am going to look at the process side of change management. Although Process has a considerable overlap with other two aspects, there is still room to look at process in isolation. Borrowing from the simple yet effective model of Lewin, Process can be unfreezed, analysed and repackaged as shown in the below diagram.

Figure 1: Transforming Cube to Cone

Three misconceptions and one key tip.

No industry is immune to disruption. Are your competitors doing an "Uber"? Are the likes of Amazon, Apple or Google moving in on your territory in Finance, Telecoms, Transportation or Home accessories? And how about those AI's that are replacing accountants, lawyers and doctors?

“…in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

The famous quote by Benjamin Franklin has never been truer than today.

As political certainties are turned upside down and surprises come at us from all angles, organisations could add another rare certainty: CHANGE. And change is, err – changing.

Of course, business has always known that change is inevitable. But in the past, most of it happened over time.

I once pitched an Operational Excellence programme to the top team of the company I was working for at the time.

Wanting to make an impact, I came up with a catchy name to emphasise the journey we needed to take.

The pitch day came. Standing at the front of the room, I opened with a story of Julius Caesar crossing a river in order to get to Rome and sort things out.