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Services > Independent Project Review
IT projects fail because they lose touch
with reality. Independent review helps them keep in touch.
Free
Project
Reviews
As an introductory
offer, we are offering free project reviews to new clients. Download this pdf for
details, or contact me at graham@grahamoakes.co.uk.
IT projects are a High Risk / High Reward activity
• Fewer than 20% achieve their objectives
• We only do them because the rewards are so enticing
Failures stem from one root cause
• People lose sight of reality...
• ... They get overenthusiastic in their promises
• ... They get sidetracked
• ... They want to believe they can solve every problem
• ... They misunderstand each other
Independent Assurance helps you stay in touch
• Are objectives clear and understood by everyone?
• Do status reports match actual progress?
• What assumptions are people making?
• Are there any misunderstandings across teams?
Independent facilitation
• Get at issues without getting tied up in private agendas
A tailored review plan
• A fixed price matched to the scale of your project
• Clearly identified points for ongoing assurance
• Independent facilitation of key meetings
• Email and phone support
• Escalation processes
Invest a couple of percent of your project budget now
to avoid large overruns later
Want to discuss how we can help you achieve your objectives? Let’s talk...
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Book:
 "Project Reviews, Assurance and Governance".
My book is available direct from Gower, or via retailers such as
Amazon. For signed copies, or to make bulk orders, contact me at graham@grahamoakes.co.uk
and I'll be happy to share the author's discount with you.
Training:
2010 dates for my seminar on "Running Effective
Project Reviews"
have been announced by Unicom. The course gives a hands-on view of some
of the issues of running project assurance, and helps participants to
think about ways to address these issues.
Articles and Downloads:
Avoiding Pain -
Projects are messy: we get things wrong more often than we get them
right. To succeed, we need to engage with the mess and learn from
it. EvaluationCentre.com, July
2010
Earthquakes in the project portfolio - Why do
patterns of project slippage look like earthquakes? What does this say
about the psychology of project managers? Conspectus,
May
2009
Why can't IT projects be insured? - You can buy
completion bonds for many projects, but not for IT projects. How might
the availability of completion bonds change IT projects? Project
Manager
Today, March 2009
Keeping
in touch with reality - Projects and programmes begin to fail
when they lose touch with reality. Reviews can help them keep in touch,
if you set up the reviews appropriately. A podcast on Controlling
Chaos
, Jan 2007
There's
no
success
like failure - How pervasive is project failure? This
article in the Financial Times explores the reality and
discusses how you can make the most of your projects.
Financial Times Digital Business, 11 July 2006
Keep in touch with Reality: Effective Project
Assurance - Projects fail for one reason above all others: people
lose touch with reality. This article discusses the role of project
reviews in keeping in touch with reality, and gives some tips for
setting up effective project reviews. APM Project
magazine, July, 2006
Independent Assurance Service Overview
Assurance of Open Source Software - Talk given to
the British Computer Society, 27 October 2005
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