Category Archives: Information

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Strategy with Feet

How often do we go to the bookshelves and take out a book , with all intentions of implementing the principles and concepts mentioned, ending up a few months down the line having read it, but practicing anything but its content. We live in a society full of knowledge pockets and yet we so often lack the ability to really tap into them and apply those principles we have learned.

When we do really grasp the content within some of these knowledge pockets and realize the value of cross pollinating ideas into your own knowledge pocket we find winning strategies. These strategies can take us to a new state of reality and can open up new  opportunities and markets for us. As business owners we live for those ah-ha moment. These strategies give us hope that our businesses will still be here tomorrow.

However we have become a nation that is great at developing strategies but very poor at implementing them. We can spend hours and days developing a business strategy, a development plan a turnaround strategy or whatever you would like to call it. We read it through, print it, publish it and talk about it and that is where it stays.

Implementation is a total different kettle of fish. It requires concerted effort, breaking down each strategy into implementable elements. Define projects around each with responsibility and timelines and implementing those in a true project management fashion. It requires us to think on how we are going to measure achievement and where we are today. It requires that we give the strategy feet and take the road to fulfilment.

DBSA IIS Training

The Project Hub  was privileged to train the DBSA (Development Bank Southern Africa) Western Cape Team last week.

This training was done as part of the roll out of PPO (Project Porfolio Office) for  the IIS (Infrastructure implentation support) division.  The main drive of the project is to  provide a central project management tool and repository for various initiatives undertaken.  The data within PPO would ultimately be used for extracting a divisional Balance Score Card directly from PPO.  A capability that served one of the largest programmes in the DBSA sucessfully in the past.

Getting what you don’t want; Wanting what you don’t need

Is this not true in project also. I am often challenged by people, business processes, expectations, non performance, attitudes…just to mention a few ..when running a project. To be honest, these are things I really could do without, but still they are part of running projects. The success of a project lies not in the fact that we do not have these challenges, but more oftentimes in the manner in which we address the challenges we do have.

On the other hand I tend to want stuff that I really do not need. We look at projects and focus on the 80% that really delivers the 20% of value. If we plan properly before we start we should realize that some bells and whistles can really be dropped. Getting the priority things addressed first would remove a lot of pressure from the team and ensure that value to the client is produced early in the development life cycle. The success of a project therefor also lies in getting the balance right between what I want and what I truly need. This balance talks to performances optimization and in more layman’s terms being able to do more with less.

So this seemingly paradoxical statements both seems to be building blocks towards project success. It is therefore necessary that we are consciously mindful that we will get what we do not need, and so must take care how we handle these unwelcome guests to our projects. On the other hand we will want things for ourselves, our teams and our clients, that we can do without and so should not place an unnecessary burden on the delivery team and so jeopardize the outcome of the entire project.

Written By: Lizette Venter