Best Practice

Using Rewards to Motivate Staff

Posted by Ian Burgess on December 28, 2009 at 9:14 pm

Over the last few months I have been dealing with issues on how to motivate staff and found this really interesting talk from TED by Dan Pink (who happens to be Al Gore’s speech writer). He touches on practices such as Result only Work Environments definitely food for thought. Starting with a fact that social [...]

Timothy Brown – Innovation Through Design Thinking

Posted by Ian Burgess on November 22, 2009 at 2:36 pm

Tim Brown is the current CEO of IDEO and the author of the book Change By Design which has helped deepen my understanding of the process of innovation. My Introduction to his thinking came from this presentation from MIT-World.

Theory of Constraints – Basic Principles

Posted by Ian Burgess on November 4, 2009 at 11:42 pm
TOC Basic PPrinciples

The three basic principles of Theory of Constraints (as outlined by Goldratt in The Goal), like may axioms they are really self evident although they are not backed up by reference-able evidence, this being said they are widely accepted.

Why Critical Chain Project Management

Posted by Ian Burgess on October 28, 2009 at 1:10 pm

Why would I use Critical Chain Project Management? If you are currently experiencing projects having problems with schedule, budget and scope along with the common event of people over committing through their own acceptance or by the plans of the project manager. If so then it is definitely worth looking at adopting Critical Chain Project [...]

TOC Theory of Constraints

Posted by Ian Burgess on October 11, 2009 at 1:04 pm

Having read “The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt some time ago after an introduction to the book by Andrew Byers. I have used the theory to look at process, projects and companies with results that have shown the validity of the theory. The system also has parallels with the concept of flow expressed by the [...]

Basics of Risk Management

Posted by Ian Burgess on September 21, 2009 at 7:17 pm

Basic Risk Management is about understanding and managing the risks which exist in the project or operations you are monitoring and is outlined well in the quotation below. “Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact [...]

Using User Stories

Posted by Ian Burgess on September 15, 2009 at 11:18 pm
User Stories

I have used user stories for some time to develop products and am currently using this process in developing several products it is good to be able to outline the process quickly. To do this I use a simple construct and process to help to in-bed this practice. I will quickly go through this proces

James R. de Piante The Project Manager as a Coach – Leadership in Projects

Posted by Ian Burgess on September 3, 2009 at 7:52 pm

One of the most discussed presentations at the IPMA World Congress 2008, this looks at the role of leadership in project management and the effect of the project manager on the morale of the project team. this video is courtesy of YoungCrew.de.

Feasibility Study TELOS

Posted by Ian Burgess on August 15, 2009 at 4:38 pm

The Feasibility Study will help in the company understanding the projects viability by looking at several factors to gain a full picture of the project in the current environment. With this information an informed decision can be made on whether the project will go ahead or change in scope and time frame or be left until the situation changes. Many [...]

Software Demos – Bringing the user on Board

Posted by Ian Burgess on August 3, 2009 at 10:04 am
Software Demos - Demonstrations of Potential

Something I have been working on with people over the last few months is to begin to explain systems during software demos from the perspective of users, as opposed to just demonstrating functionality. The problem with most software demos is that it shows functionality without showing the user the relevance of the system. The user [...]