Well, I am, and it’s more difficult than I expected. I sit down on my own, and sow my thoughts into the keyboard and see them blossom on the screen; there are days when the words flow, and days when I’d sooner browse facebook and linkedin. Today is a mixed day, but the process is to keep going back, and putting the words down.

The working title is “Fundamentals: Delivering Change”, and it complements my consulting and training offerings quite nicely.  The first part is a practical guide to delivering change, aimed at all management levels, explaining what their roles are, how to go about them, and what they can expect of others.  Lots of stories and analogies, but each chapter summarises the fundamentals.

Part 2 is a guide to tools.  I shall be providing a toolkit (free via the website), and this section summarises how to use it.

I intend to use the experience as an experiment, and may delve further into this sort of service. If it works for me, it can work for my clients.  I’ll let you know who I choose, and how we get on.  The starting point is about 20 hours per month.

So, consider a business change to a new target operating model (TOM).  Does the new TOM have some redundancy built in, or is it always working at 99% capacity?  If so, what happens if 5% of the staff leave suddenly, and there’s a struggle to replace them? What will you compromise on then? Quality, cost, time?

Of course the umberella may have other uses, too

Or a change programme – are there enough people of the team to deliver all components, to plan? If not, regardless of dedication and heroics  from the team during the delivery of the change, the risk of failure can be very high, damaging the investment, the benefits, as well as the morale and reputation of the delivery team.

So, work the team hard, but not unreasonably; get good value from the members, but make sure you can cope if something happens.   Like taking an umberella on a cloudy day – it’s often better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

Click here to view: Project Management Rules NASA

Farmer: “Great thanks – did you count them?”
Ben: “Yes”
Farmer: “How many were there?”
Ben: “40″
Farmer: “40!? There should only have been 37! Where did you find the others”
Ben: “Well you said to round them up…”

Having recently qualified as a P3O practitioner, I take the view that there’s not much new to me in it, but the training it is really valuable for the following reasons:

• It correctly and strongly emphasises that projects and programmes represent an investment by the organisation, and should be managed accordingly; Governance, in particular, is addressed comprehensively, without being prescriptive
• It offers several models for operating across an organisation, which also take account of the organisation’s capability & maturity
• It acknowledges that projects can be a hotbed of risk, and offers approaches to deal with them

In summary, PMOs and mechanisms for managing programmes and portfolios are often poor relations when it comes to control, and P3O provides an approach to address this. Recommended.

Goshido is a high impact tool for any team or project which needs to make sure actions, priorities and communications are handled smartly. It uses cloud technology, and blends the principles of Lean, and Agile to make it easier for teams to work together in demanding environments. Communications – and I mean really clear communications, understood by all involved – are essential to the success of any project, from business change to development and construction. Goshido is a big step forward in making team communications work well. Goshido is exciting, and I expect it to make a major contribution to the speed and success of my projects.

Gerard Hartnett is founder & CEO of Goshido. After his time as a former senior architect with Intel, managing global teams, he developed Goshido to solve problems encountered over the years.

Edinburgh event

Ger and I will be hosting an event in the office of the Consulate General of Ireland, 16 Randolph Crescent, Edinburgh EH3 7TT. I’ll addresss Business Change, Ger will cover Agile, Lean & Goshido, and there will be plenty of opportunity for networking. It starts at 5:30pm for 6pm, and will finish by 7:30pm.

If you’re interested in attending, please email donncha.hughes@goshido.com,with your contact details or call Donncha on 020 3286 8605.  There’s no charge for attending, but attendance will be limited to those pre-registered.

On a related, but separate note, here’s a link to an item in today’s Wall Street Journal.  An interesting piece on how Goshido chairman Frank Hannigan did successful & speedy fundraising using his contacts on Linkedin.  This was unprecedented in its success, but that’s the sort of company Goshido is.

Here’s a slideshow demonstrating that it’s better to get it right first time than to have to do it again and tidy up the mess left by the first attempt.  Having turned around several failing change initiatives, I reckon that the most difficult mess to clear up is usually one left by poorly thought out communications and engagement of key people, especially staff.

The photos were taken in Co Galway, Ireland, where I lived for a few years.  (In case you were wondering, the last photo in the sequence is a hoax, but it amused me)

On a lighter note (via Gary Delaney), here are a couple of examples of over elaborate notes for the cleaners:

Polish War Memorial