Identify the exact reasons your projects are running late…
In less than 8 hours...
Identify The Exact Reasons Your Projects Are Running Late... in less than 8 hours...
book your free 30-minute consultation
If you're interested in finding out more, or want to know if this is what you need click here to book your free 30-minute consult, today.
In less than 8 hours...
I'll help rescue your failing projects and give you clarity on how to deliver them on time, in full, and on budget without stopping to plan more, adding more capacity, or spending more money.
Most Projects FAIL!
Only 13% of agile projects deliver to expectations. And, 54% of the time, the clients challenge what gets delivered. But the sorry situation doesn't stop there. Only 34% of waterfall projects deliver on time.
The problem is clear.
TRADITIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT THINKING ENCOURAGES US TO:
"Set tighter due dates & budgets." "So more planning." "Start more work earlier."
book your free 30-minute consultation
If you're interested in finding out more, or want to know if this is what you need click here to book your free 30-minute consult, today.
In less than 8 hours...
I'll help rescue your failing projects and give you clarity on how to deliver them on time, in full, and on budget without stopping to plan more, adding more capacity, or spending more money.
Most Projects FAIL!
Only 13% of agile projects deliver to expectations. And, 54% of the time, the clients challenge what gets delivered. But the sorry situation doesn't stop there. Only 34% of waterfall projects deliver on time.
The problem is clear.
TRADITIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT THINKING ENCOURAGES US TO:
"Set tighter due dates & budgets."
"So more planning."
"Start more work earlier."
But this out-of-date thinking is causing your projects to run later and later.
I've been delivering projects for twenty years. I've dealt with the same issues, which take a personal toll. When a project is running late, there's only one solution. Work longer hours — often weekends. Working more hours would be tolerable if that was all you had to deal with, but, in reality, it's the least of your worries.
There's the constant anxiety and stress of updating the boss. The client is on their case and wants updates, YESTERDAY. Not only do you have to deal with this pressure, but often, you have to deliver bad news...
"Sorry, we need to push back the go-live date."
You brace yourself for the onslaught before giving the second dose of bad news.
"...and we're going to need more money."
It's not fun being in this position week after week. So, I want to help you avoid it once and for all.
But this out-of-date thinking is causing your projects to run later and later.
I've been delivering projects for twenty years. I've dealt with the same issues, which take a personal toll. When a project is running late, there's only one solution.
Work longer hours — often weekends. Working more hours would be tolerable if that was all you had to deal with, but, in reality, it's the least of your worries.
There's the constant anxiety and stress of updating the boss. The client is on their case and wants updates, YESTERDAY. Not only do you have to deal with this pressure, but often, you have to deliver bad news...
"Sorry, we need to push back the go-live date."
You brace yourself for the onslaught before giving the second dose of bad news.
"...and we're going to need more money."
It's not fun being in this position week after week. So, I want to help you avoid it once and for all.
First, here's why traditional solutions are failing you.
Adding more capacity.
Extra capacity doesn't solve the root cause of the issue.
When you don't change ways of working, any additional capacity disappears into fire-fighting daily problems.
It never gets allocated to the right tasks. It's only a matter of time before you beg for more capacity and money.
Tighter due dates.
Due dates cause Student's Syndrome (wait till the deadline).
And Parkinson's Law (work fills the time you give it).
Which makes the projects run later.
But no one even sees it.
Releasing more work into the project causes multitasking.
Have you ever noticed that when you’re doing two or three things at the one time.
And everything takes longer.
It’s stressful too.
Incorrect planning.
Incorrect planning means, typically you as the project manager are left to do the planning, then you’re told that the estimates and the work definitions are wrong.
But you’re told you can’t have the developers or testers help you, they're too busy. So, execution is done badly. The project runs late and the PM gets the blame.
Using weekly or fortnightly updates.
Using weekly or fortnightly updates as your measurement method means you never know you're late until you're actually late.
It’s no fun given that update to the boss at the last minute.
Not unblocking a project team member.
Not unblocking a project team member and asking them to go on to the next piece of work.
This means people are working out of sequence.
Having too many priority rules.
Think of it like this, imagine being an air traffic controller and constantly change the order of the planes you’re trying to land, everyone is busy, focus continually changes, stress runs high, eventually planes start to crash.
Same with projects.
Have you noticed anything about these issues?
‘They’re common sense right…
BUT it's not common practise to change them. Ask a leader to reduce priority rules and they say
‘we have to have this many rules, it makes us more responsive’.
First, here's why traditional solutions are failing you.
Adding more capacity.
Extra capacity doesn't solve the root cause of the issue.
When you don't change ways of working, any additional capacity disappears into fire-fighting daily problems.
It never gets allocated to the right tasks. It's only a matter of time before you beg for more capacity and money.
Tighter due dates.
Due dates cause Student's Syndrome (wait till the deadline).
And Parkinson's Law (work fills the time you give it).
Which makes the projects run later.
But no one even sees it.
Releasing more work into the project causes multitasking.
Have you ever noticed that when you’re doing two or three things at the one time.
And everything takes longer.
It’s stressful too.
Incorrect planning.
Incorrect planning means, typically you as the project manager are left to do the planning, then you’re told that the estimates and the work definitions are wrong.
But you’re told you can’t have the developers or testers help you, they're too busy. So, execution is done badly. The project runs late and the PM gets the blame.
Using weekly or fortnightly updates.
Using weekly or fortnightly updates as your measurement method means you never know you're late until you're actually late.
It’s no fun given that update to the boss at the lat minute.
Not unblocking a project team member.
Not unblocking a project team member and asking them to go on to the next piece of work.
This means people are working out of sequence.
Having too many priority rules.
Think of it like this, imagine being an air traffic controller and constantly change the order of the planes you’re trying to land, everyone is busy, focus continually changes, stress runs high, eventually planes start to crash.
Same with projects.
Have you noticed anything about these issues?
‘They’re common sense right…
BUT it's not common practise to change them. Ask a leader to reduce priority rules and they say
‘we have to have this many rules, it makes us more responsive’.
Actually, it makes EVERYTHING run late. It give the illusion of working on most things at once, but no progress is being made.
So... what's the solution?
To avoid making the same mistakes, you must avoid the traditional solutions. The "spray, pray and spend" approach won't work. There's no point in scatter-gunning the problem, crossing your fingers, and throwing money at your project hoping your fortunes change.
Actually, it makes EVERYTHING run late. It give the illusion of working on most things at once, but no progress is being made.
So... What's the solution?
To avoid making the same mistakes, you must avoid the traditional solutions. The "spray, pray and spend" approach won't work.
There's no point in scatter-gunning the problem, crossing your fingers, and throwing money at your project hoping your fortunes change.
YOU NEED TO DO THREE THINGS:
Analyse your current project methods & outcomes, And get to grips with your current ways of working.
You may not like what you’ll find but it’s the only way to know what to do differently. And once you know what you’re doing wrong you can be confident that what you’ll do instead will work.
Finally, a stress-free life as a PM.
But more importantly imagine being able to walk into any project and, like magic, within a few hours know exactly what to change. It’s like having your own project x-ray machine that shows you what’s going wrong and why.
We’ll teach you our secret sauce and you’ll have this insight method for the rest of your career.
Have a reliable, predictable project management toolkit, so future projects never go astray. Now you know what to change you need to know what to do instead.
Think of it like this, most people who want to get the body of their dreams know they should eat less, train more, and take some vitamins. But what, how and when.
Once you and I have checked the problems and we know what to change we’ll teach you exactly what to do next. We’ve done it hundreds of times, so can have complete confidence that the new ways of working you’re about to adopt will work.
Your boss and team will see you in a different light. As one project manager from a large bank told us,
‘once I had this method of working, my manager told me I was the only PM she could rely on’.
And if you are the boss reading this don’t want complete confidence that how your teams work will delivery every time. You’ll get products and services to market faster than all of your competition.
Have a proven mechanism for taking your people along the change journey. So you now know what you’re doing wrong, you even know what to do right, you have...
..complete confidence that you’ll delivery everything in sight. Only one problem. Your team are still thinking in the old way.
Here’s what most people do. They build a PowerPoint with their new insights, after-all they’re excited right? They get everyone in a room and NO ONE agrees with what they want to change.
Of course if you’re the boss you could force the change, until your back’s turned and everyone goes back to their preferred methods, even though they’re wrong.
We’ll help you fix this. We’ll teach you ‘INTERVENTION THEORY’ a psychological method of giving people informed choice, helping them see for themselves what to change and what to change to.
Changing your teams point of view will never have been easier. No more heated conversations. No more disagreements. Instead enthusiastic buy - in to new ways of working.
YOU NEED TO DO three THINGS:
1. Analyse your current project methods & outcomes, And get to grips with your current ways of working.
You may not like what you’ll find but it’s the only way to know what to do differently. And once you know what you’re doing wrong you can be confident that what you’ll do instead will work.
Finally, a stress-free life as a PM.
But more importantly imagine being able to walk into any project and, like magic, within a few hours know exactly what to change. It’s like having your own project x-ray machine that shows you what’s going wrong and why.
We’ll teach you our secret sauce and you’ll have this insight method for the rest of your career.
2. Have a reliable, predictable project management toolkit, so future projects never go astray. Now you know what to change you need to know what to do instead.
Think of it like this, most people who want to get the body of their dreams know they should eat less, train more, and take some vitamins. But what, how and when.
Once you and I have checked the problems and we know what to change we’ll teach you exactly what to do next. We’ve done it hundreds of times, so can have complete confidence that the new ways of working you’re about to adopt will work.
Your boss and team will see you in a different light. As one project manager from a large bank told us,
‘once I had this method of working, my manager told me I was the only PM she could rely on’.
And if you are the boss reading this don’t want complete confidence that how your teams work will delivery every time. You’ll get products and services to market faster than all of your competition.
3. Have a proven mechanism for taking your people along the change journey. So you now know what you’re doing wrong, you even know what to do right, you have...
..complete confidence that you’ll delivery everything in sight. Only one problem.
Your team are still thinking in the old way.
Here’s what most people do. They build a PowerPoint with their new insights, after-all they’re excited right? They get everyone in a room and NO ONE agrees with what they want to change.
Of course if you’re the boss you could force the change, until your back’s turned and everyone goes back to their preferred methods, even though they’re wrong.
We’ll help you fix this. We’ll teach you ‘INTERVENTION THEORY’ a psychological method of giving people informed choice, helping them see for themselves what to change and what to change to.
Changing your teams point of view will never have been easier. No more heated conversations. No more disagreements. Instead enthusiastic buy - in to new ways of working.
We Specialise In Helping Organisations And Pms To Put These Things In Place, And Lead Projects To A Successful Conclusion. Here's How...
We Specialise In Helping Organisations And PMs To Put These Things In Place, And Lead Projects To A Successful Conclusion. Here's how.
Introducing the...
8-Hour Project Recovery Audit Workshop
Our 8-Hour Project Recovery Audit has helped... over 80 large organisations and many smaller ones, deliver their projects on time. For example:
A £30m banking app that was running 9 months late delivered early.
A large housing development new build for a housing development that had never got off the ground was finally built.
Public sector planning applications delivered early.
Public sector road refurbishment, delivered early with less spend.
Large projects in the defence sector are utilising this method to take years of new defence builds.
The method is widely used by large banks to deliver their compliance requirements on time.
Housing void teams are using it to take weeks and months of the time it takes to turn around a void in social housing.
Environmental health teams using it to reduce the time to conduct environmental projects.
Housing adaptations for the elderly using it to reduce the time to reduce adaptations from years to weeks.
The world’s largest bus manufacturer have used it to have a record year in the volume of buses they built.
A large balustrade company using it to deliver more office, shopping centre and luxury house handrail and staircase builds.
We'll DO THREE THINGS:
We'll send two of our project experts into your business for a One-day intensive audit / workshop. With you, the boss or the project manager or director to spend the time with us, here’s what we’ll achieve with you:
Quickly you’ll get an objective baseline of the delivery performance of your projects.
This means to build a picture of a) time for request for a project to be delivered against the delivery date, and b) the percentage that projects complete on time, budget and with a full delivery of content.
And with Agile projects, the typical cycle time of work and the number of pieces of finished work delivered within a year. Note: whilst most people assume they have this data they rarely have an objective view of how projects are really performing.
Understand and document the ways of working and reasons for the current performance. This will give you information on what aspects of the process and policies you should change around how projects are delivered.
Provide an alternative method of delivering projects.
Leave you with a plan for implementing the change, and how to use intervention theory.
You'll get access to our project management toolkit, so you can implement it on future projects.
THIS INCLUDES: How to gather data on project performance both waterfall & agile, finally you’ll know how things are actually performing.
How to study ways of working within the project:
Is there multi-tasking, if so why?
How many and what priority rules do you use?
What happens when someone is blocked?
How do you do planning?
How do you release work, is it right?
Are your definitions of work to be done up to scratch, will our teams understand them when they get handed work?
How do you hand out work, is it too frequent of not often enough?
What questions do you ask to identify if someone is running late?
What recovery actions are taken when they are?
How do you measure projects, and give updates, is it effective?
What to change to...
How to plan projects that are set up for effective execution.
How to run a portfolio of projects for faster delivery.
How to build daily workflows for projects that eliminate multi-tasking.
How to define the work to be done so that teams know what to do every-time, thus reducing tiresome conversations.
How to measure projects, DAILY, so that you know with 100% certainty and months in advance if your project will deliver on time and if it won’t you’ll know what actions to take to get back on track.
How to manage suppliers and customers so that they are not the cause of the late running project.
By the end of the day you’ll have complete insight into how to study any project environment and know exactly what to do to change it and how to bring your whole team with you.
Introducing the...
8-Hour Project Recovery Audit Workshop
Our 8-Hour Project Recovery Audit has helped... over 80 large organisations and many smaller ones, deliver their projects on time. For example:
A £30m banking app that was running 9 months late delivered early.
A large housing development new build for a housing development that had never got off the ground was finally built.
Public sector planning applications delivered early.
Public sector road refurbishment, delivered early with less spend.
Large projects in the defence sector are utilising this method to take years of new defence builds.
The method is widely used by large banks to deliver their compliance requirements on time.
Housing void teams are using it to take weeks and months of the time it takes to turn around a void in social housing.
Environmental health teams using it to reduce the time to conduct environmental projects.
Housing adaptations for the elderly using it to reduce the time to reduce adaptations from years to weeks.
The world’s largest bus manufacturer have used it to have a record year in the volume of buses they built.
A large balustrade company using it to deliver more office, shopping centre and luxury house handrail and staircase builds.
We'll DO THREE THINGS:
1. We'll Send Two Of Our Project Experts Into Your Business For A One-Day Intensive Audit / Workshop.
With You, The Boss Or The Project Manager Or Director To Spend The Time With Us, Here’s What We’ll Achieve With You:
Quickly you’ll get an objective baseline of the delivery performance of your projects.
This means to build a picture of a) time for request for a project to be delivered against the delivery date, and b) the percentage that projects complete on time, budget and with a full delivery of content.
And with Agile projects, the typical cycle time of work and the number of pieces of finished work delivered within a year. Note: whilst most people assume they have this data they rarely have an objective view of how projects are really performing.
Understand and document the ways of working and reasons for the current performance. This will give you information on what aspects of the process and policies you should change around how projects are delivered.
Provide an alternative method of delivering projects.
Leave you with a plan for implementing the change, and how to use intervention theory.
2. You'll get access to our project management toolkit, so you can implement it on future projects.
THIS INCLUDES: How to gather data on project performance both waterfall & agile, finally you’ll know how things are actually performing.
How to study ways of working within the project:
Is there multi-tasking, if so why?
How many and what priority rules do you use?
What happens when someone is blocked?
How do you do planning?
How do you release work, is it right?
Are your definitions of work to be done up to scratch, will our teams understand them when they get handed work?
How do you hand out work, is it too frequent of not often enough?
What questions do you ask to identify if someone is running late?
What recovery actions are taken when they are?
How do you measure projects, and give updates, is it effective?
3. What to change to...
How to plan projects that are set up for effective execution.
How to run a portfolio of projects for faster delivery.
How to build daily workflows for projects that eliminate multi-tasking.
How to define the work to be done so that teams know what to do every-time, thus reducing tiresome conversations.
How to measure projects, DAILY, so that you know with 100% certainty and months in advance if your project will deliver on time and if it won’t you’ll know what actions to take to get back on track.
How to manage suppliers and customers so that they are not the cause of the late running project.
By the end of the day you’ll have complete insight into how to study any project environment and know exactly what to do to change it and how to bring your whole team with you.
book your free 30-minute consultation
If you're interested in finding out more, or want to know if this is what you need click here to book your free 30-minute consult, today.
Alternatively you can email me by clicking below
how to get started...
book your free 30-minute consultation
If you're interested in finding out more, or want to know if this is what you need click here to book your free 30-minute consult, today.
Alternatively you can email me by clicking below
Here's what others think...
If you’re a leader or consultant and you’re trying to figure out why your projects are running late book this is two day analysis workshop.
I can now walk into any project and within hours know exactly what areas I need to change to get a quick result in project delivery and get late running projects back on track.
Senior Manager, Major Bank - Gordon Price
Stuart is an amazing facilitator, presenter and analyst.
This process is brilliant in its simplicity. Stuart will take you into the work, you’ll see how your projects work (you’ll be surprised at what you see), you won’t need to be talked into anything, you’ll see it for yourself. And then you’ll get amazing clarity on what you need to do to get a result.
Head of Agile, Major Bank - John Dunnion
If you have late running project then this two day workshop will show you point by point why YOU’RE project isn’t on track.
When I did this with Stuart I expected to sit in a boring two day workshop, nothing like that at all, within the first 30 mins we were digging up our project planning, execution and measurement processes. I simply couldn’t believe that what I thought was going on…wasn’t. If you really do what to find out why your projects aren’t delivering book this workshop now.
Head Agile Coach, Financial Services - Dougal Mather
Stuart taught me this process and the critical chain method 15 years ago, since then I’ve ben able to deliver dozens of projects that were seen as being undeliverable.
If you’re a senior leader do don’t delegate this process to your team. Go and see how things really work in your project system.
Chapter Lead for scrum masters, Major Bank - Steve Bolan
I’ve been through this process with Stuart a few times and learned how to use it both in the diagnosis of projects and service organisations.
As a consultant I use it to help my clients see where their real problems lie. It not only helps me get them on board fast but gives me huge credibility and authority with the client.
Most consultancy firms do silly interviews to identify what problems exist. Stuart’s method studies the actual project and gives real insight.
Consultant, Major Insurer - Vicky Harston
Here's what other think
If you’re a leader or consultant and you’re trying to figure out why your projects are running late book this is two day analysis workshop.
I can now walk into any project and within hours know exactly what areas I need to change to get a quick result in project delivery and get late running projects back on track.
Senior Manager, Major Bank,
Gordon Price
Stuart is an amazing facilitator, presenter and analyst.
This process is brilliant in its simplicity. Stuart will take you into the work, you’ll see how your projects work (you’ll be surprised at what you see), you won’t need to be talked into anything, you’ll see it for yourself.
And then you’ll get amazing clarity on what you need to do to get a result.
Head of Agile, Major Bank,
John Dunnion
If you have late running project then this two day workshop will show you point by point why YOU’RE project isn’t on track.
When I did this with Stuart I expected to sit in a boring two day workshop, nothing like that at all, within the first 30 mins we were digging up our project planning, execution and measurement processes. I simply couldn’t believe that what I thought was going on…wasn’t. If you really do what to find out why your projects aren’t delivering book this workshop now.
Head Agile Coach, Financial Services,
Dougal Mather
Stuart taught me this process and the critical chain method 15 years ago, since then I’ve ben able to deliver dozens of projects that were seen as being undeliverable.
If you’re a senior leader do don’t delegate this process to your team. Go and see how things really work in your project system.
Chapter Lead for scrum masters, Major Bank, Steve Bolan