Todd Williams
eJournal Archive
eCameron has published numerous newsletters, emagazines, and Newsletters. Following is a listing of the past volumes.
February 2011 - Stress, Failure Rates, the Future of Project Management, and more
The Executive-Project Manager Gap
It was such an innocuous question, "Working on an article; what is the biggest problem you see with project governance at orgs? Can you comment?" Can I comment? Really? That is like cheese to a mouse. Where could I start—bureaucracy, draconian process, poor executive sponsorship, disengaged leaders? Plenty of fodder, because they all lead to project failure. I fired off, "Creating an over bureaucratic morass stifling innovation & implementing process instead of cultivating leaders." Then the maelstrom started and it went directly to the gap between the executives and projects managers. Naomi Caietti, Robert Kelly and I had a great conversation. Most of the thread is below.
November 2015 - Vision to Value eJournal
Yes. It has already been a month. There is a bit of a theme this month—Leadership. Three of our four articles talk directly about that. Speaking of leadership...
The Regional Leadership Forum is open for registration for the 2016 program. Have you checked it out? This is a great 9-month program put on my SIM (Society for Information Management) in nine regions around the United States. Top notch facilitators work with cohorts of 18-24 upcoming leaders to hone their leadership skills. It is a great program and you, or one of your team members, would find immense value in taking it. Please drop me a note, give me a call, 360-834-7361, or visit its web page.
In this month's Vision to Value eJournal we cover:
- Three talk about leadership, and
- Two articles are on Organization Change Management (OCM),
- One is a snarky article about IT.
I hope you enjoy them!
Cheers,
Todd C. Williams
President, eCameron
Disband Your PMO
After nearly 30 years of project work, I struggle to understand the role of a project management office (PMO). Even though, I have written of the pros and cons, and read a plethora of articles, opinions, and how-to guides little has been done to convince me that the PMO is reducing project failure. It seems to be nothing more than a tool to fill a void in leadership? Even the acronym, which is so widely thrown around, has little meaning as the "P" has no less than four meanings. It is an executive's crutch for their lack of understanding in how projects work. These, like other, unattended holes in the corporate accountability create opportunities for new and greater bureaucracies and empires that further obfuscate accountability.
Organization Change Management (OCM) Research
eCameron is conducting interviews on Organization Change Management (OCM). This research stemmed from other research on the role of Executive Sponsorship.
Executive Sponsorship Research
eCameron is conducting interviews on Executive and Project Sponsorship. The interviews are based on a request from a prospective client on training courses for executive sponsors. (This request is now closed and the white paper, Challenges in Executive Sponsorship, is published.)
October 2015 - Vision to Value eJournal
Welcome to our new eJournal with a new name, look, and feel. We hope that you like it. It brings you significantly more information on how to execute your initiatives and projects successfully. After all, being able to deploy new capabilities faster with better adoption is what makes any business leap forward. We are sure you will find material to help you do just that.
This month we cover:
- Two case studies on major failures
- A look into how all of us can learn from public sector projects
- How to keep you out of court, and
- Leadership in your projects
Cheers,
Todd C. Williams
President, eCameron
The Catch-22 of Organizational Change Management
"Kotter, ADKAR, or CAP which methodology should we be using to build our approach to improving project adoption?" I hear this question repeatedly from people trying to implement an organizational change management (OCM) program. The problem is that is the wrong question. Take a perfunctory peek at any of the models and you will see that in the quest for an answer people have mistakenly jumped over the first few steps and they head down the road of failure. It is a Catch-22; unless you already have an OCM process in place, you will most likely fail at implementing it. Putting one in place, however, is a change—one of the most difficult cultural transformations your company will undertake. As a result, people jump to the solution stage, which is well down the change management process path (which, they did not know, ironically, since there was no procedure in place).
Project Inception - Designing Organizations For Success
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A failing project’s fate is destined long before assigning a project manager. Its doom is sealed from the time the customer envisions the idea. Traditionally, project inception is defined as when the customer comes to a solution provider (internal or external to their organization) asking for a product or service. In actuality inception is much earlier. It starts when someone says, “Wouldn’t be neat if I could...” From that point forward the customer’s exceptions are set, changed, and reset as the process of discovery refines the concept. The customer’s ideas change from what they want to what they need, while continually constrained and formed by the realities of an ever-changing business environment. Although people cite unrealistic expectations as major problem during inception, the constant change in expectations causes the real issue—misalignment. For project managers to make a significant difference in a project’s success, they must use a new paradig.
Project Rescue Blog Posts
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Tales of an Expert Witness: Sex, Lies, and Video Tape (Part II) Written on Wednesday, 02 December 2015 06:30Trust relationships, certifications, and standards sound like such a safe harbor. These sound like such great words in a proposal or statement of work. How could you possibly go wrong…
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Tales of an Expert Witness: Sex, Lies, and Video (Part I) Written on Friday, 01 August 2014 00:00The subpoena shows up at the front desk and the call comes to you to pick it up. That nauseating feeling in your gut is the prelude to a long…
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The 6 Ps of Public Sector Project Failure: Profit, Periodicity, Politics, Passion, Press, and Pay Written on Friday, 30 May 2014 00:00"The government is incapable of running projects. Simply put, their miserably high failure rate proves that government should be out of the project management business." There are plenty of examples…
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Case Study: Division Of Unemployment Assistance, Massachusetts/Deloitte Written on Sunday, 30 March 2014 00:00In May 2007, the Massachusetts Division of Unemployment Assistance (DUA) signed a contract with Bearing Point, Inc. to modernize the State’s unemployment processing system. The project was called the DUA…
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Case Study: $250 Million Failure, Who Are You Going To Sue? Written on Sunday, 30 March 2014 00:00In order to comply with the Affordable Care Act, the State of Oregon made the decision to build its own Health Insurance Exchange (ORHIX). An online portal to allow applicants…
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Consultants Cheat Written on Sunday, 25 March 2012 00:00"We can fix this project ourselves." I hear that line all the time. And, of course, you can. It will just be a lot slower and more expensive because consultants…
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Decision Makers, Shakers, and Fakers Written on Sunday, 12 June 2011 00:00Decisions, deshmisions, what is the big deal? Anyone can make a decision! Hardly. After years of working with ineffective initiatives and consternated companies, I have a healthy respect for the…
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Passionately Dispassionate Written on Sunday, 29 May 2011 00:00People routinely ask me the question, "What do you do when you find yourself on a project that is a hopeless failure?" It was raised again a few weeks ago…
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Leading Without Authority Written on Sunday, 27 March 2011 00:00Leadership is more than leading the people reporting to you. Too often, you need to lead people over which you lack any authority. The absence of hierarchical advantage adds a…
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The Consultant's Lore Written on Sunday, 16 January 2011 00:00"Why is it that when you get hired you are no longer the expert?" A chuckle rippled through the audience; however, the woman asking the question was serious. I turned…
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The Snake Pit, Taking the Poison Out of Technical Debt Written on Sunday, 27 June 2010 00:00Projects build in technical debt and maintenance groups remove it—if your organization has a maintenance group. Technical debt accrues in any product, whether or not it has a technical component.…
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Five (more) Stupid Management Decisions on Failing Projects Written on Sunday, 20 June 2010 00:00A few weeks ago, I posted an article on five of the ten stupidest decisions management had done on troubled projects, as promised, here are the other five. Although these…
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