Getting Your Project Off the Ground with Decisive Sponsorship
Sponsor behaviour is a huge driver in project success. An indecisive sponsor, reliant on a weak team, or unsure of their preferred direction will drag a project down. Conversely, active and decisive sponsorship creates passionate leadership and proactive thinking, and...
Project Redemption
A sponsor’s life is hard. The project’s yours. For better or worse. People above are asking tough questions. Scope creep. Budget blow-out. Schedule over-run. Recovery plan?? And people below have no answers… That’s a hard place. If you’ve been there you know it. But...
This Is The Best Thing You’ll Do To Save A Failing Project
Four ways a recovery specialist will save your project When someone calls Luminate something’s gone wrong. It can take time to realise this - sponsors don’t like admitting there’s an issue. Often we’re called when a project (or sponsor) are nearly terminal. But...
How To Learn The Early Warning Signs Your Project Manager Is Failing
Knowing the early signs your project’s in trouble can save you a lot of time and money. Most projects fail through poor project management or poor sponsorship. If you’re a project sponsor this one’s for you… and if you’re project’s struggling, this might just save...
Getting It Done With Practical Agilism
The Luminate team are all accomplished project leaders. With decades in delivery between us, we’ve seen a few “hot” methodologies in our time. In our experience it can be exciting to see a new approach roll off the assembly line - a different methodology can truly...
Fighting Fires While Your Project Burns
So here’s the question… what do you do when your project is out of control? When scope creep has the better of you, your budget’s shot to hell, and delivery was three months back? And - perhaps worst of all - when none of your project managers can tell you where it’s...
Square Peg, Round Hole?
There are two types of project managers. You’ll all recognise the Type 1 PM. The task list jockey who systematically ticks off activities on a pre-determined list and every now and then, when operating in a stable and mature environment, flukes a win. Primarily...
Make The Shortcut The Process
Shortcuts. We’re all told not to take them. But if taking shortcuts delivers value more quickly, yet doesn’t follow the process … then what part of the equation is wrong? Make the shortcut the process. Otherwise subscribe to the philosophy that it’s better to ask for...
Trust, But Verify
You read the status reports. You attend the steering committee meetings. You even have 1:1 catch-ups with the PM. Yet inexplicably the project that’s been reported green week after week, is now reporting as red! Meaning the original baseline schedule, cost or...
Vitamins for Project Fatigue
We’ve all experienced fatigue before, but what do people mean when they talk about project fatigue? Within a project it often describes the circumstance where people lose sight of the reason for the project and their focus shifts solely to completion of tasks, which...