Penny's Blog

Sometimes good things come out of tragedy.

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:33:00 GMT

When my mother died suddenly in 2008, we didn't know that she'd had a heart attack. A few days later, we heard that this was the case. Living in a small, rural village, she didn't have much chance of survival as the ambulance took a while to reach her.

Tips on Global Project Management with ICR and APM

Wed, 26 May 2010 20:07:00 GMT

Last week, after a four-day workshop in central London, I headed out to the leafy village of Bourne End for an experiment. For one afternoon, the Project Management Forum of the Institute for Clinical Research (ICR) and the Association for Project Management (APM) met together to look at Global Project Management.

Facilitating Business Analysts Closer to Home

Tue, 11 May 2010 10:52:00 GMT

Last night was a first - the first International Institute for Business Analysis (IIBA) UK Chapter event in the Midlands! What a change from trekking down to London. It's been a while coming...

What Makes Projects Succeed?

Thu, 06 May 2010 15:30:00 GMT

I visited Swindon for the first time ever in April, after a busy day at the APM Special Interest Group forum in London. As a group of Project Managers from a huge range of industries from financial services to IT and Defence, we explored what really makes project and programmes work. You can see our views here - they are pretty much in line with what comes up everywhere I go. It isn't the 'hard' technical skills that seem to be the icing on the cake but the 'tough (not soft)' skills that encourage people to get things done willingly and well.

Risky Requirements?

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 05:04:00 GMT

I returned to the IIBA UK Chapter in March. It was almost three years since I launched my speaking career with this group of Business Analysts, so it was great to be back talking about 'Risky Requirements?' To start off, we focused on the things that make projects fail with bright yellow cardboard circles... read more to find out what I'm talking about!

Risky Goings-on at the British Computer Society

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:46:00 GMT

The British Computer Society HQ in London was pretty risky last month, especially the evening that I joined forces with Ian Thornton Bryar to explore risk with a group. See what happened next here...

94 Conference Calls Frustration: what to do with them

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:58:00 GMT

Here's a video covering conference call frustrations and what to do with them. It lasts just 5 mins 30 seconds.

Agony and Insanity: Are Meetings Really THAT Bad?

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:24:00 GMT

I've been working on keywords today with guru Pete Bennett. We had quite a laugh, until we put the word 'meeting' into Wordtracker. The first words that came up as lateral keywords (ie closely related to meetings) were the following:

Sorry accountants, but the business case isn't just about money...

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:15:00 GMT

As I drove my old car off to be scrapped, I realised that scrapping cars and project business cases are not entirely financial... see the picture and let me know what you think!

What really leads to Programme Success?

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:11:00 GMT

Last month, I was invited to join the ProgM group in London. They are the Programme Management Special Interest Group of the APM and they were looking for something 'a little bit different' around the softer skills of programmes.