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The Planning Fallacy

11 July, 2022 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Example of The Planning Fallacy Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House Perhaps the most famous example of the planning fallacy is the Sydney Opera House. Located on Bennelong Point on the banks of Sydney Harbour in New South Wales, the Opera House was designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon and opened to the public in 1973. It is one of the […]

Filed Under: Blog, Wild Cards Tagged With: anchoring, assumptions, capital investment, planning, planning fallacy, project management

Is Big Always Strategic?

15 January, 2018 by James Lawther 7 Comments

Bridge

The small project Today you (and I) will be confronted by a handful of “small projects”.  Things that you could nail down within a couple of weeks.  Small things that will make your business work better.  Perhaps you could: Free up some space on the servers to make them run more efficiently. Draw up a […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement Tagged With: continuous improvement, project management, strategy, test and learn

The Project That Couldn’t Fail

15 July, 2017 by James Lawther 2 Comments

Plan to Fail

Trite management sayings Managers love clichés. They pick them up as they gain experience and seniority. The most popular are those that prove their superiority and make others feel small. A couple of my personal favourite statements of the obvious are: “Fail to plan and plan to fail” and “Poor Planning leads to P### Poor Performance”. […]

Filed Under: Blog, Employee Engagement Tagged With: ballistic model of success, command and control, culture, Dilbert, political will, project management

Red is Good Green is Bad

19 May, 2015 by James Lawther 7 Comments

The RAG status We love RAG statuses, Red, Amber, Green: My project is on track :) We are meeting all our SLA’s :) We have some minor resourcing issues :/ Our cost performance is upper quartile :) We manage our businesses with green happy faces.  It gives executives a sense of control. And if performance […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: blame, fessing up, key performance indicators, performance management, project management

When I’m Old and Grey(er)

8 September, 2013 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Taking a break

I’m getting on a little.  After 25 years of work I want to make sure that I don’t have to do another 25. Tragically, I am starting to worry about my pension. I want to spend my golden years watching the sun set over the ocean, not sitting in an office. So I have talked […]

Filed Under: Blog, Process Improvement, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: innovation, project management, risk assessment

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