projects

9 years, 2 months ago

Begin Every Project with a SWOT Analysis

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Here’s an idea to help your projects go smoothly. Start each project off making sure that the team understands the business context it is operating in by  performing a SWOT analysis. I’ve been in a number of discussion recently that have made me think about ways to get projects off on a solid footing, understanding […]

9 years, 6 months ago

Attack of the Vegan Zombie Business Cases

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The Business Analyst and the Project Manager have yet another impossible timeframe forced upon them, which they accept.  Faced with the prospect of losing the confidence of their Project Sponsor, they somehow manage to squeeze out their Business Case.  The Business Case is such a success that they circulate it to the usual suspects for […]

9 years, 6 months ago

“Fairy Bright Eyes”, Projects, and Decay

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“Fairy Bright Eyes” is an installation by Ryan Monro, one of a dozen artworks in Auckland’s Learning Precinct Micro Sites initiative1.  A unexpected curiousity in an unusual location on a university campus, this piece represents beautiful aspirations and their subsequent inevitable decay: A chandelier hangs over an alleyway. At first it symbolises luxury and hope […]

9 years, 8 months ago

“What value will a Solution Architect add to this?”

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After some prompting, the technical requirements arrived for architectural review.  They had been prepared from a well-intentioned place and under the pressure of project timelines.  Scanning through them revealed serious problems: these requirements were much too far progressed, and were based upon several fundamental anti-patterns.  Needing to deliver some new information from one ERP system […]

9 years, 9 months ago

The Architecture For This Project Is Out Of Scope

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It is fair to say that the project in question has not started well. A lengthy incubation period executed in isolation from business and delivery partners has seen resources consumed in exchange for very little demonstrable progress, and high-level commitment waning. Faced with challenges like these, project managers will often retreat into their defensive belief […]

9 years, 10 months ago

Heal the Eternal Disconnect Between Project Managers and Enterprise Architects!

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Typical exchanges between project managers and enterprise architects have historically, anecdotally, and sterotypically been predictable, unconstructive, and unsatisfactory affairs that juggle and irritate tensions across dimensions such as: enterprise context vs project scope change-friendly capability delivery2 vs project delivery methodological and framework differences open/collaborative vs closed/secret The nature of these exchanges has led to the creation of an […]