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Category Archives: Project Management
Multi-Sourcing: 7 Steps to Reduced Costs and Improved Services
January 29, 2013
Multi-sourcing offers a huge opportunity to both the public and private sectors in terms of achieving (and even surpassing) desired outcomes. The reasoning behind this is rather simple — it is, in principle, a far more streamlined and efficient version of outsourcing. Whilst “traditional” outsourcing hands the entire service to a main contractor, multi-sourcing utilises multiple “best of breed” providers, each with specific skill sets, all managed by the client. However, the
Posted in Contract Management, Outsourcing, Procurement, Project Management | Tagged contract management, governance, intelligent client function, man marking, multi-sourcing, relationship management | Comments OffBest Practice When Contracting for Agile Projects
December 13, 2012
Agile project management is very much in vogue at the moment. This comes as no great surprise — the concept of simplifying and streamlining a process is instinctively appealing. Agile seemingly promises to deliver a better product in less time than the more traditional waterfall approach. However, agile project management is not necessarily a silver bullet. Successfully administrating an agile project from beginning to end requires a great deal of discipline and
Posted in Contract Management, IT Contract, Outsourcing, Procurement, Project Management | Tagged agile, agile contract, procurement, project management, waterfall | Comments OffBack to Basics: The Importance of Culture in a Service Commissioning Partnership
September 13, 2012
There are many factors that you must bring under consideration when entering into a service commissioning partnership. You are no doubt familiar with the “usual suspects” — price and capability. It isn’t unreasonable for them to be key considerations — after all, the success of any commissioning partnership is typically defined by its cost and service delivery quality. But that does not mean that price and capability should be the only considerations.
Posted in Back to Basics, Managed Services, Outsourcing, Procurement, Project Management, Public Sector | Tagged culture, profit culture, public sector, service commissioning | Comments OffBack to Basics: The Importance of an Outsourcing Governance Team
July 24, 2012
According to a Gartner survey, 53% of organisations that have outsourced reported challenges relating to a lack of project/programme management skills. Or to put it another way, they had no experienced outsourcing governance. When considering outsourcing, the creation of a Governance Team is not an option – it is a must. The team must have full responsibility for ensuring that decisions on outsourcing align with your organisation’s strategic goals. Furthermore, they must administrate
Posted in Back to Basics, Outsourcing, Project Management | Tagged governance team, outsourcing, quick wins | Comments OffService Provider Relationships: How To Prioritise Your Workflow
June 13, 2012
Last week we explored the differences between important and urgent issues in service provider relationships, and how to effectively shape your daily work hours to minimise preventable urgent issues. In the long run, following our advice should not only make your workflow far more efficient, but also reduce the amount of time you find yourself firefighting the often (but not always) inevitable urgent issues. But what if you find yourself
Posted in Project Management | Tagged decision making, service provider relationships, service providers, urgent/important matrix, workflow prioritisation | Comments OffService Provider Relationships: What You Need to Know About Better Decision Making
June 8, 2012
Your milestone deadline is looming ever closer. You’re only about 70% towards completion, and it feels like you are wading through treacle. Everyone is anxious. Your Board and peers are anticipating good news – because that is what you promised them. And yet the benefits of this provider relationship seemingly fade with every passing month. The above may well be a familiar scenario for you. The question therefore is, how
Posted in Project Management | Tagged decision making, service provider relationships, service providers | Comments Off5 Tips For Establishing Effective Public to Private Partnerships
May 28, 2012
Many local authorities are in dire financial straits. There is an ever-increasing pressure to take a hatchet to costs. They have to invent, experiment and pilot new ways of delivering services in a culture that is extremely averse to risk. Quite the conundrum. The key is to make the risks of innovation more palatable. So where are the examples of public-to-public shared services that re-invent the wheel and consistently provide positive
Posted in Procurement, Project Management, Public Sector | Tagged local authorities, private sector partner, public to private partnerships, public to public partnerships | Comments Off10 Things You Should Know About IT and Service Provider Relationships
May 21, 2012
Although I only joined Best Practice Group recently, I have already been well-exposed to the grim reality of faltering and failing supplier/vendor relationships. As a Sales Director and Managing Director of IT vendors during my career, I used to think that I knew a great deal about the topic. But in spite of that, I have learnt an enormous amount in my relatively short tenure here. The simple fact is
Posted in Contract Management, IT Contract, IT Dispute, Outsourcing, Project Management, Project Recovery, Risk Management | Comments OffHow to get your Channel Shift Strategy to cut your Costs, Fast
November 15, 2011
One of my roles is as Deputy Chairman of SOCITM Insight, the local authority IT management think tank. SOCITM has just published its annual Better Connected survey. In it, SOCITM complain Councils still don’t embrace the digital route when it comes to engaging with the public or delivering public services. What is going on? We all know, and have known for years, that movement from face-to-face services to digital delivery has achieved modest
Posted in Cut Costs, Performance Improvement, Project Management, Public Sector | Leave a commentHow using Agile Project Management TREBLED the cost and timescales of a major project
March 9, 2011
We have recently been instructed to review a major software development project for a client in the insurance and financial services field. Using the ‘Agile’ project management methodology to develop the project rapidly in five stages, the end to end cost of this project was supposed to be £2m and completed in 18 months. As we review the current status of the project, it looks like this: Costs have escalated
Posted in Cut Costs, IT Dispute, Managed Services, Outsourcing, Project Management, Project Recovery | Tagged agile, agile contract, project management | Leave a commentGet Free Updates
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