Project and Programme Management #01

Introduction

This is the first of a planned series on project and programme management. I have always held back from blogging about this subject – especially the basics – as there is so much material already available. However there seems to be a never failing demand for people to want to know the basics (e.g. questions and discussion threads on LinkedIn and the like), so hopefully this will help. If even just one or two readers find this useful, it’ll have been worth doing. Please feel free to post comments, especially suggestions for future topics.

RBS CEO to get £4.5 Million shares bonus

It's been more than a year since my last "angry" post about banks and bankers. In the UK the government knows that the general public is unhappy about the way that the banks escaped any penalty or punishment over the financial crisis that they helped bring on. Yet it has done little about it.

Can you or I save the world?

We hear such a lot about the problems of our world, and especially the human-caused ones: environmental damage, exploitation, warfare, etc. These are huge issues and we can feel powerless to affect them. But if we allow that thinking to stop us, then we truly are doomed. We (the little people – that’s you and I) can affect these big, world-wide matters: for good or bad.

Social Media - some nice examples

In the past I have posted on the good and also the bad influences and uses of Social Media. This follow up focuses on some really great “good” uses of Social Media I’ve come across recently. If you have any examples, perhaps you could add a comment to point them out?

Social media and loyalty cards – the next big thing?

Loyalty cards: most of us have them these days. Supposedly we – the customers – derive great benefits from them because we can get “free stuff”. In reality, of course, the real beneficiaries are the producers because they can gather huge amounts of data about our spending patterns and adjust their marketing accordingly. Of course you could argue that this benefits the consumer too: it’s much better to get a money off voucher for a product you regularly consume than for something you’d never buy (I have a cat, so why do I need a dog food voucher?) Very clever.

Risks and safety for children on the internet

“29% of European children aged 9-16 who use the internet have communicated in the past with someone they have not met face-to-face before, an activity which may be risky but may be fun.” This is a quote from the report Risks and safety on the internet. The perspective of European children Initial findings from the EU Kids Online survey of 9-16 year olds and their parents. This report was published on 21 October 2010. It presents the initial findings for the “EU Kids Online II” project which is funded by the European Commission Safer Internet Programme. Its authors are Coordinator Sonia Livingstone plus Leslie Haddon, Anke Görzig and Kjartan Ólafsson.

The curse of email

Overheard on the train to work this morning: "I don't like voicemail. Personally I prefer to use email. You don't have to talk to anyone and it gives you an audit trail." Of course there's nothing new in this, but whereas a year or two ago I'd have expected at least one person in the conversation to demur, in this case there was complete agreement. Now maybe this is not indicative, but my instinct tells me it is. And what a shame if so...

Instant Gratification

When Christmas decorations and adverts start appearing in October you have to start to wonder what's gone wrong! I'm no great fan of Halloween, but I do prepare some goody bags every year (into which I add a small leaflet about the gospel message of Jesus) -- but this year someone actually knocked on the door to "trick or treat" on the 30th, and they were annoyed when I told them it wasn't Halloween yet and to come back tomorrow (they never did). And then we have to listen to fireworks going off for days -- if not weeks -- before Guy Fawkes night. What is it about our society that tolerates, and maybe even expects, this kind of behaviour? It's a measure of greed and instant gratification mixed together. And the sad thing about it is that I don't think it makes people any happier.

Work and Responsibility

The beautifully produced, intelligently written and faultlessly acted UK ITV series Downton Abbey has, among its many moments of thoughtful reflection on society, a scene where the current Earl is talking to a cousin, his only male relative and therefore inheritor of the estate (this is the 1920s).

ConDem the CSR - or why the Liberal Democrats have sold their souls

So the comprehensive spending review (CSR) is out. As we expected, there are swingeing cuts in the UK Public Sector. There had to be, didn't there? After all, public borrowing was at an all time high. And it was all the fault of those Labour people, who got us into this mess, wasn't it? Sorry, I don't think so...