Ian Burgess » Ian Burgess wondering and musings of a Project Manager and Consultant

Public Sector Procurement an Institute of Consulting Scotland Event

Ian Burgess — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:50:06 +0000

The next IC Scotland event focusing on Public Sector Procurement…..

Ensure The Success of Your Scottish Government bid

Enjoy breakfast with Graeme Cook of Procurement Scotland and IC Scotland

Graeme is the Professional Services Category Manager in Procurement Scotland. He works across the whole of the Scottish public sector to develop and implement procurement strategies on behalf of all Scottish public sector organisations. These organisations include Universities and Colleges, Local Authorities, Police, Fire, Health boards and Central Government

The Scottish Government says that engaging consultants gives organisations the flexibility to meet immediate, varying, short term needs and is often the most cost effective option. Consultants bring relevant knowledge and experience adding value to an organisation’s objectives. Public sector organisations are encouraged to use national contracts established by Scottish Procurement which have secured significant savings for the Scottish public sector.

Find out how you can make that your tender meets Scottish Government Procurement criteria and be successful with your bid.

Where:- Festival Theatre, Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9 FT
When: – Tuesday 21st February, 2012, 8.00am – 10.00am

Four Ways you can book:-

Click here to go to our Eventbrite page

Call 01383 852931

Email direct to sales@eventsforbusiness.co.uk

Visit webpage here http://procurementscotland.eventbrite.co.uk

Price:- £15 for members of Institute of Consulting or CMI, £25.00 for all others (includes hot breakfast rolls, tea and coffee) Price includes VAT.

Public Sector Procurement an Institute of Consulting Scotland Event is a post from: Ian Burgess

David Allen on Workfast TV

Ian Burgess — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 08:15:27 +0000

A really good GTD interview with David Allen.

David Allen on Workfast TV is a post from: Ian Burgess

Conversations with Accidental PMs – Goals and Objectives

Ian Burgess — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:00:36 +0000

Over the past week many of the conversations have been with accidental project managers who are struggling with projects. Mainly as a result of them accepting projects that are focused on achieving organisational goals. In most cases doomed for failure as there are either far to many objectives or far to few that are badly defined.

Without getting the the original project/projects defined in the beginning the accidental/new PM has set themself up for failure even if they run the rest of the project with text book efficiency. At this point the conversation I would then focus on the difference between Goals and Objectives and how to begin the process of working with the stakeholders and redefining them. If we accepts the basic definition that:

A Goal is a high level aim that is possibly more strategic and in some cases more aspirational than achievable.
An Objective has a tangible outcome that can be defined with certainty

Pulling the objectives out from the goals

The PM in most cases when confronted with Goals needs to spend time with the stakeholders positioning the goals as strategic outcomes, it must be remembered that a goal cannot in most cases be achieved and is more assertional such as “we must improve customer services”. This very quickly needs to be defined in to objectives which will allow the PM to map the project/projects to outcomes that can be clearly accepted as complete by the organisation without any ambeguity.

The project manager needs to make sure that they have a good understanding of the organisation and time to understand what the goal really means to the stakeholders, the majority of the PM time and skills are spent on communication and business analysis. This normally takes the form of conversations with variations of the questions below and negotiation on defining exact requirements.

What methods would our customers prefer to contact us with?
If the Goal has been achieved what would that mean for ……? If we could monitor this what would the matrix be like?
Do we currently use matrices to measure our interactions with customers? If not what can we measure?
If we agree to adopt X with our customers what Training, Technology, Governance need to be put into place?

Creating a Programme

Once there is agreement on the definable objective the PM can then begin to create projects that can achieve the objectives, the key to this is that there will be several projects which have very definable and achievable outcomes. This begins to create the Programme that will move the company towards the goal, these can be grouped and presented as a working answer to the original project “we must improve customer services” quickly becomes:

Reduce customer call waiting time to less that 30 seconds
Resolve 90% of enquires in first contact
Install email management system
Create online knowledge base
Create FAQs for all common questions

This is presented as a Programme that will move towards achieving the goals of the organisation, with the added benefit that the organisation and PM can clearly see the end results and more importantly the PM can show success and create a culture of success and clarity within the organisation. It is important that new project manager (whether accidental or not) are given the support to define the projects correctly and manage projects which have a chance of success.

Wining small battles(projects) mean you are more likely to win the large battles (Programmes).

Conversations with Accidental PMs – Goals and Objectives is a post from: Ian Burgess

No related posts.

CMC through Professional Discussion

Ian Burgess — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:10:12 +0000

Having just recently been the first person to go through the CMC by discussion I was asked to put a few sentences together for a IC newsletter so have added them below.

The professional discussion route to the CMC required a large amount of preparation and time to map the projects to the framework, during this process a significant amount of knowledge was gained about my working style.

The discussions allowed the examiner to explore areas in more depth than they would have if this part of the examination was done in writing, and the time to prepare the correct answer was remarkably reduced.

Along with gaining the CMC the process was helpful in verifying my past understanding and helping to select CPD for the future.

To find out more about CMC have a look at.

CMC through Professional Discussion is a post from: Ian Burgess

No related posts.

The Oldest Profession…

Ian Burgess — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:05:24 +0000

A medical doctor, an engineer, and a management consultant were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world.

The doctor started… “Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken from Adam’s body. This must have required surgery, and so I can claim with a high degree of confidence that mine is the oldest profession in the world.”

The engineer responded, and said, “But earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most impressive application of civil engineering. Therefore, dear doctor, you are wrong: mine is surely the oldest profession in the world.”

The management consultant leaned back in his chair, smiled, and then said confidently, “Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?”

The Oldest Profession… is a post from: Ian Burgess

No related posts.

Control and Prespective

Ian Burgess — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 21:08:13 +0000

One of the key points from the talk by David Allen yesterday was about maintaining Control and Perspective. Control through the five phases of workflow and planning and perspective through working with the horizons of focus.

This is something I have been continually used to get a realistic picture of my world and clarity in what I should be doing. Once I gained a basic understanding of this and began to get clarity by working either up or down the areas of focus until progress was made.

The bullet points bellow were taken down during the presentation.

Getting Control

Capture

What has your attention? (Vs your head)

Collection Devices

Clarifying

What attention is still needed?

Should I action it? (no/yes)

No = Trash / Reference/ Maybe Later

Yes = Outcome? / Next Action?

Decide when it shows up (vs when it blows up)

Use the Frontal Cortex

Organising

Where something is matches what it means to you

Put things where those kind of things go

List manager + Files

Reflecting

Regular over-viewing from higher perspective

Working blueprint of commitments

Engaging

What resources need to be alocated now?

What is the next action?

Trusted Choice (vs latest/loudest + Hope)

Intuition + Planning

The 6 levels for Getting Perspective

Purpose/Principles

Why?

What is core value?

How?

Vision

What (would this look like)?

What would sucssess look like?

Goals

Accomplish?

What do we need to achieve?

Responsibilities

Maintain?

What am I accountable for?

Projects

What do I need to finish?

Actions

What do we need to do?

Physical Activities

One of the main benefits of the talk was that the focus was on the basic principles rather than working through building list and doing the weekly review which although are important are no where near as effective with out this fundamental understanding.

Control and Prespective is a post from: Ian Burgess

No related posts.

David Allen at the LBF

Ian Burgess — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:34:26 +0000

I have just been to the LBF David Allan seminar and found it to be extremely useful in focusing on the key concepts and questions to ask rather than going in to detail on the mechanics of GTD.

One of the key points were that 95% of improvment is systematic.

I will think this over and discuss more tomorrow.

David Allen signing books and answering questions.

David Allen at the LBF is a post from: Ian Burgess

IC Scotland – Launch event of the new brand

Ian Burgess — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:44:09 +0000

The last IC Scotland event ran at the Festival Theatre to a mix of IC, CMI and non members the focus of the event was procurement and we will be posting a link to all the slides online shortly. With interest being expressed in the new developments and hopefully a closer working relationship with education as a result.

With special thanks to the speakers Gill Joy from Intend EU and Alan Fowler from Isochron.

IC Scotland – Launch event of the new brand is a post from: Ian Burgess

David Allen at the DO Lectures

Ian Burgess — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 22:51:47 +0000

David Allen talking at the Do Lectures

David Allen at the DO Lectures is a post from: Ian Burgess

Bodugi.com Launch Night

Ian Burgess — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:09:55 +0000

The launch party of Bodugi one of the best projects I have worked on over the last 12 Months, Look out for the integration to Facebook and more to come in the future.

Bodugi.com Launch Night is a post from: Ian Burgess