Monthly Archives: February 2014

2602, 2014

Some projects should never have been started

By |February 26th, 2014|0 Comments

All consultants, when being frank, will admit to the odd self-inflicted disaster.  The responsibility of many failed projects rests fair-and-square with the initiators.  They create projects or new starts with utter abandonment, overlooking the commitments each projects require.  Like children, projects need to have plenty of affection, attention, and nurturing.  The consequences for projects when […]

2602, 2014

Relate the contract of engagement to the size of the contract

By |February 26th, 2014|0 Comments

Relate the size of the contract to the risks involved.  Contracts for minor assignments (less than £30,000) should be, at most, a two-page document.  In most cases it could be all contained in an email with a confirmation or a simple signature, on the email, with the words “agreed as outlined above”.
We do need to […]

2602, 2014

Invest in a comprehensive selection process

By |February 26th, 2014|0 Comments

Recruiting staff and a consultant is a life and death decision as Peter Drucker reminded us.  It is better to spend 40 hours in a comprehensive selection process (putting up fences at the top of a cliff) than spend 400 hours sorting out the mess (at the bottom of the cliff).
It is imperative that you […]

902, 2014

Finding Your Organization’s Internal Critical Success Factors

By |February 9th, 2014|0 Comments

Recently I have realised the importance of distinguishing Internal from external critical success factors. A Board of a charity rightly pointed out that the CSFs tabled (the internal CSFs) were too internally focused.  They wanted to see, understandably the external picture, the external CSFs.  The Board was naturally looking from outside-in.  The Board want to […]