When I was in Cardiff a couple of weeks ago delivering the Project Management in the Real World event, I was checking into my hotel and met the one and only Mr Henry Winkler (aka Fonzie)! I was a wee bit starstruck to be honest. :-) Me and my brother used to catch Happy Days as kids - the man's a legend! Seemed a really nice fella, had a chat and posed for a photo. He was in Wales as an ambassador for the UK’s My Way! campaign to raise awareness of dyslexia.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education-news/2010/06/16/the-fonz-tells-children-of-his-battle-with-dyslexia-91466-26661787/

The eagle stork has landed!

Baby Daniella arrived at just past 7am on Friday 17th July weighing in at a healthy 7lbs 4oz. Mum and Baby both doing very. I'll upload a couple of photos when I get a chance.

For those of you who have been on my courses in the last 6 months or so, you'll have heard the anecdote about how I'm fortunate enough to be looking forward to being a Dad again and, with my wife also being a PM, like all prospective parents we planned the pregnancy in MS Project. This caused me great delight in discovering that I could actually make the baby appear in a mere month if I got 9 women involved!

Ok, so we all know this isn't right but there are PMs out there who would have you believe that simply by throwing extra resources at a plan will shorten the duration. At times it works to a certain extent but it will almost certainly cost you more and will definately increase the risk - especially in the case of pregnancy!!

Anyway, despite all the planning some things just can't be accounted for so I'm sitting here still waiting for the baby to arrive.

Tenuous link time! Uncertainty such as I'm experiencing is what we call risk. People are often asking us whether we are being adversely effected by the credit crunch and to be honest many people are investing more in PM and especially risk management as they can no longer afford to get things wrong. We've been noticing this for a while but here is an interesting article that puts figures on this. It just backs up what we say in our training events and I've been going on about here - that to plan without risk not only naive but down right crazy!

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/06/25/236623/technology-and-communications-firms-continue-to-invest-in-risk.htm

Read this article in this week's Computer Weekly. Whilst being specific about IT projects the underlying message is transferable regardless of industry, sector, geography or culture. Fundamentally, it's saying that it's ok to make mistakes, it's fine to talk about them... but also learn from them. The big problem is being afraid to discuss failure (real or perceived) which gives a skewed view of the world to everyone. Allowing and encouraging openness on projects is really important, as is being fair, open and honest yourself. And if you're a PMP you have no choice in the matter anyway, as you've signed the PMI Code of Ethics! 

Have a read:
Watmore tells MPs why so many government IT project fail