Project Management

“How do you know when to start a critical project?” As ‘timing’ can be crucial to the success of a project, it’s surprising that our experience evidences that it’s a skill not many organisations have mastered. If you begin a…

Many of our blogs refer to the importance of not only entering larger contracts in the right way but also the equal, if not greater, importance of managing these contracts and the providers they are with, once they are in…

The cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) has reportedly ostracised senior government officials for holding back evidence – by as much as eight months – that Europe’s biggest infrastructure project, HS2, was in serious financial difficulty and they allegedly knew full…

The bedrock of Britain’s nuclear defence programme is Trident’s Continuous At-Sea Deterrence (CASD). The principle is that at all times, there will be at least one nuclear submarine at sea on patrol. However, a recent National Audit Office (NAO) report…

It’s not unusual for senior management teams to be unaware of the significant value their supplier management and Intelligent Client Function (ICF) teams create for their organisations. And, because this value can often go unnoticed, those at the coalface can…

IT enabled business change projects necessitate some of the most complex relationship arrangements of any outsourcing project. Often this is because of the tendency for such business critical IT projects to stretch boundaries, to look to create better, faster and…

Outsourcing any aspect of your operations is rarely a walk in the park. For anyone who’s ever been through such a project, the challenges, misunderstandings and potential for clashes when handing responsibility to a third party are likely to have…

In November the National Audit Office (NAO) released a new report on contract management, and because we found it so insightful we’ve decided to dedicate a few articles to the subject and to the findings of the report. This particular…

Radiotherapy is crucial to the treatment of up to 40% of all cancer patients. However, it’s recently been reported that deaths may well have resulted from radiotherapy equipment upgrade delays experienced across the NHS. It seems that radiotherapy assets –…

It has never been more important to ensure that your complex service delivery (outsourcing) relationships succeed. But how can this be achieved in an environment where it seems so commonplace that external service providers fail to achieve expected business outcomes.…

Service delivery innovation is the ‘holy grail’ solution sought by many in the UK across both the private and public sectors since we entered the austerity era. We have all been asked to do more with less. But is innovation…

With the recent announcement from the BBC that the NHS’s major complex projects management and procurement support force – the Strategic Project Team (SPT) – will be “closed down”, questions are now being asked and lessons must be learned in…

The NAO have reported that “A third of major government projects due to deliver in the next five years are rated as in doubt or unachievable unless action is taken to improve delivery” NAO Controller and Auditor Amyas Morse believes…

A PFI project being hailed as a model partnership, expected to deliver what it was planned to, and all for less than expected may not be something you often see reported in the media, but the Thames Tideway Tunnel (TTT)…

Service integration and management (SIAM) has continued to be something of a buzz-acronym in managed service and outsourcing circles. The way it’s talked about, you might be forgiven for thinking that it’s a silver bullet which in one fell swoop…

In our last article ‘4 Lessons from successful IT megaprojects’,we reviewed a number of the country’s largest and most renowned recent IT megaproject success stories in the context of what each could teach us from their struggles and accomplishments. This…

Megaprojects are large-scale public ventures, complex in nature, often taking many years to complete with the potential to impact on the lives of millions of people – they are projects on a scale that demands a very different management skillset,…

As news circulated about Serco’s fourth profit warning in a year and plans for a rights issue to the tune of £550m to stabilise their battered and beleaguered balance sheet, we have seen an increase in contact by some of…

Selecting and managing suitable suppliers often requires a much greater emphasis on communicating your business outcomes to them, along with much more subtlety and finesse in managing the emotional stakes, than many realise. The importance of strong supplier relationships from…

Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) is an incredibly useful step in the procurement process, especially when one of the more restrictive procedures is to be selected. However, essential though it may be, PME has until now been largely ignored. New EU…

With so many pieces in play on the metaphorical chessboard of complex service-provider relationships, to ensure success in achieving your business outcomes it is important to know how each will move. Who are the advocates, the obstructers and the fence-sitters?…

Supplier relationships can be complicated, they can be messy and they can at times be self- destructive. Poor planning, insufficient research, ambiguous contracts and conflicting agendas – all can contribute. These errors or omissions don’t even need to be substantial…

Why is it that no matter how clearly, simply or concisely you communicate your expectations, there will be times when what you get back bears no resemblance to what you were asking for? Is it your communication style, a training…

Despite hopes to the contrary, we continue to regularly hear about the failure or abandonment of all too many projects. There are no shortage of uncomfortable headlines in the press about relationship breakdowns, cost overruns and deliverables left undelivered. These…

Fixed fees are often seen as the ultimate goal for buyers when negotiating a new project with a vendor. But while fixed-fee projects can offer a degree of certainty on both sides, if needs and costs are not determined with…

How many times have you been involved in what was billed as a crucial project, only to see it fall at the first hurdle? For many businesses in the private and public sector, juggling numerous projects at any given time…

If you are to believe the statistics published on problematic big IT projects – whether a commercial sector Enterprise Software implementation (ERP), a Local Authority Client Relationship System (CRM) or an NHS Trust dealing with a problematic Electronic Patient Records…

There are many factors that you must consider 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,…

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…

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 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…

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.…

Although I only joined Best Practice Group recently, I have already been well-exposed to the grim reality of faltering and failing service provider relationships. As a Sales Director and Managing Director of IT vendors during my career, I used to…

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…