Inarticulate ramblings of a management consultant

the day to day experiences of a consultant operating in weird and wonderful client situations

Tag Archive for ‘Collective behaviour’

6 Comments

Agile – A change in methodology or something much deeper and altogether more challenging?

I’ve just spoken at an excellent conference on project management in KL. There were some truly interesting seminars on project recovery, risk, the danger of optimism in projects, and of course Agile. It is extraordinary what sort of reaction this topic generates amongst proven, seasoned project management professionals and the range was certainly on display at the conference. I saw everything there from fear and loathing, to contemptuous dismissal, to […]

Continue Reading →

4 Comments

Are we always going to spend countless hours on planes to get to sit in meeting rooms with colleagues?

This morning, as I sit on yet another flight, this time from Singapore to Hong Kong, it’s ever more apparent to me that far from video conferencing and other forms of communication taking the place of international travel, planes are fuller than ever with business travellers flying short distances for a schedule of meetings, which from my own straw poll over the past 18 months, are mostly internal to their […]

Continue Reading →

2 Comments

Absorptive Capacity, Knowledge Management and Innovation Capacity

Originally posted on Paul4innovating's Innovation Views:
Let’s start with some defining statements. Innovation is totally dependent on becoming aware of external ideas and the knowledge that is needed and then translated for it to become new innovation. We can ‘fall over these ideas’ or we can find ideas or concepts through explicit search. Then to translate these and turn them into something new and different we need to…

Continue Reading →

Leave a comment

The bubble….why does it continue? Our poor forecasting capability or collective amnesia?

I was listening this morning to the Forum on the BBC which had an archectural theme to it, notably including Stephen Bayley, a commentator with whom I had dealings some years ago and whose opinion is always worth listening to. He made the point that the completion of very large, eye catching buildings seemed to frequently coincide with an economic downturn and quoted Dubai and various buildings in London, the […]

Continue Reading →

8 Comments

What’s the value of a plan?

It may seem strange to those of you who know me that I’m in the profession of planning otherwise known as project / programme management. For years, my life was anything but planned, work opportunities seem to occur through a combination of chance and happy circumstance. Obviously it’s been easy to post rationalise my various moves (!) but the reality was very different. That was not however due to a […]

Continue Reading →

6 Comments

The messy business of retention in merger integration projects

I suspect that the phrase most often heard and rarely delivered against in the transactions world is ‘people are our most important asset‘. It’s right up there with ‘there’s a natural cultural fit between our two companies‘ and ‘this acquisition will be earnings accretive in x years’! Why does the tendency to make statements based on zero knowledge and little chance of delivery continue in a market situation which has […]

Continue Reading →

3 Comments

Music training boosts IQ

Originally posted on BRAIN'S IDEA:
There are more and more brain training companies popping up which promise the same deal: improved intelligence. While there are doubts about their results, another sort of brain training has existed since the beginning of humanity: music. The evidence for its effectiveness is surprisingly strong. . Brain training in the 1930’s. . Over the years, researchers have noticed that people who have taken music…

Continue Reading →

Leave a comment

The milestone or is it millstone of entering ones second half

Since my earliest days as a consultant, probably as some kind of unfulfilled legacy from my days as a headhunter, I have had certain types of ‘conversations’ with men and women of my age. Sometimes these are driven by an event such as redundancy or a cross road in terms of career, or a sense of lack of direction…which may be driving loss of productivity and motivation. I was struck […]

Continue Reading →

7 Comments

The cult of the heroic project manager

I’ve spent a lot of time with a particular client this week and was reminded of the extraordinary nature and power of the heroic project manager species. Let’s define them for a minute…they live and breathe projects, they turn a rather dull programme management reporting task into a real, living document which gives insight. When they engage with a stakeholder, they do an extraordinary thing…they operate at an incredible level […]

Continue Reading →

Leave a comment

Why do we like sad Music?

Originally posted on BRAIN'S IDEA:
. But I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.   Why would anyone want to listen to this? Radiohead’s song Creep is not the exception in being a heartbreaking but nonetheless successful song. According to Wikipedia , of the ten best-selling music singles ever several are clearly sad songs: Elton John’s Candle in the…

Continue Reading →