Project philosophy - art and science.

There are many different methodologies for project management. However, despite the many accredited practitioners available many projects still fail (Standards Australia estimate 50-90% of projects go over time, over budget, or fail to meet expectations).

Projects are generally:

• Dynamic - objectives, people, problems, budgets etc will all change in any moderately sized project.
• Satisfying - in running a project you have as much control and ‘general management' responsibility as you can expect to find. You have to manage people, budgets, decisions, change, relationships, vendors, and much more.
• Risky - let's not pretend otherwise. Almost by definition a project is something that has not been done before. However hard you try you cannot forsee all risks, issues and results.
• Difficult to do well.

They are not:

• An outcome in themselves
• A self-fulfilling industry created to consume resources
• A place to hide
• A project plan or set of documents

Our approach embraces change management principles as well as our 'outside-in' consulting focus to motivate the project team or teams to work together to achieve the desired result.

Our project management approachs means we will:

• Constantly ask why are we doing this and how will it help the business.
• Invest in thorough planning and always aims to meet deadlines - remembering time is of the essence in containing costs and delivering benefits.
• Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of all individuals, and hold them accountable.
• Be proactive rather than reactive, forcing a crisis where appropriate rather than waiting for it to arrive. Anticipation and foresight are key skills.
• Be positive and breed a ‘can do' attitude.
• Invest heavily in communications and teamwork.

Methodolgies - one size doesn't fit all. The Waterfall approach to project management is the most common method. This is a sequential process, in which the project is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the project phases. Agile methodologies generally promote a project process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation and a leadership philosophy that encourages team work, self-organisation and accountability together with a business approach that aligns the project with customer needs and company goals. Despite the attractions of the Agile approach many organisations find it difficult to adopt both culturally and from a process perspective as most processes are geared to the traditional waterfall approach. For some customers, we have found that a combination of Agile and Waterfall can have significant advantages.\

We use whichever method fits the needs and circumstances, inclusing hybrid Waterfall/Agile approaches such as that shown below.

We have experience in managing large and complex programs of work across different industries.

Our services in project management also include: Establishment, Recovery, PMO, QA, PIRs, Health Check, Training and Mentoring.