The Price of Speed Is Always Paid. The Question Is by Whom. "ERP projects can be delivered within months." Most executives have heard this line. It usually comes from a vendor presentation or an implementation partner's proposal, and sometimes from a peer who says...
Every Role in a Project Answers a Different Question Most project structures look the same on paper. A box at the top, a few boxes underneath, and a row of workstreams at the bottom. We have all seen the chart. Most of us have sat inside one. What we see less often is...
Seeing Clearly We all see the world around us uniquely. The world around us is unique to us. We make sense of people, activities, positions and events through our own experience, our own hopes and our own fears. Two people can sit in the same meeting, hear the same...
Effort in the Wrong Direction Only Takes You Further Away Goals are often clear. They can be concrete, measurable and tangible. The direction to achieve them is not. We know where we want to end up. A finance system live by the first of July. A promotion within two...
Success Takes Time to Build. Failure Takes Time to Show. It takes time to achieve anything meaningful. Work, learning and improvement compound over time. None of them pay out much in the first month, or the first year. Then, slowly, the results improve. What looked...
Trust Comes Before Change Management Some leaders give long speeches. They build the case, anticipate every objection, try hard to convince, and say all the right things. And yet no one follows them. The room nods. The room leaves. Nothing changes. Other leaders say a...
If There Is Only One Blessing, I Would Ask for Strength If there is only one blessing I may get, I know what I would ask for. Not success. Not wealth. Not protection from failure. I would ask for the blessing of strength: to be able to keep going positively in life,...
There Are Not Many Reasons to Act — So We Have to Work Hard to Find Them There are many reasons not to act. Stay where you are. Play safe. Do it tomorrow. Ignore it. Get distracted by something easier. Each of these is available at any moment, for almost anything....