Leading Critical Change

Although very strong technical expertise and leadership may well be required to select and implement the right IT solutions, ultimately it is the level of commitment from the business that determines the success of any large IT change project. Business priority, clear vision, specification of requirements, choice of the right solution, leadership of organisation and [...]

Widespread business change is enormously costly and risky. Commitment of any function to change is entirely driven by self interest. The return on investment and effort has to be obvious and far and away above the cost. For cross functional change the benefits sought need to be at or very near the top of the [...]

A failing project – what is needed? Knowledge? Know-how? But what kind? If the real issue is a failure to coordinate the expertise already within the business then adding more may not help. Worse, it could send a “you lot don’t know what you are talking about!” message to the existing team. Some years ago [...]

Are current issues symptoms of wider ills? A struggling project could be an opportunity to bring different ways of working into the organisation. In normal circumstances it is tough to get buy-in for behaviour changes but within a troubled project all participants are usually very open to new approaches. If the project is rescued these [...]

Why do companies treat internal and external projects differently? External projects all have formal contracts stating what is expected – detailing the what, how, who, when, how much and how it will be managed – and requiring sign off, if large, by the senior sponsor, the FD and the MD. It is common to find [...]

A compelling story is the only thing that maintains alignment and commitment of the whole business to a particular programme. If it is missing, not understood, or just not exciting or important enough – then the future of that programme is at risk. Also for my clients, this story is my identity in the business, [...]