I have been involved in project management for over 30 years. When I was first introduced to the discipline, I found it very exciting. The ability to conceive of a future, and then work with a team of people to see those ideas become real - turned into things that people use and value [...]
I believe there was a lot of good stuff in the 2016 report “Learning from Failure” by Professor Peter Shergold AC. But that was two years ago, so everyone has moved on from then, right? I sincerely hope not. In his review Professor Shergold identified 10 key lessons to be learned, the first one [...]
As most of you know, an Independent Review of the Australian Public Service (APS) is underway. The deadline for submissions has been extended to 31 July 2018 (if you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to contribute here). The review will report in the first half of 2019. The scope of the review [...]
It’s the end of the financial year. Phew. Public and private sector employees alike have all been very busy rushing to get everything done. There will, at least for some of you, be a brief sense of a slowed pace for July. And then the rush will begin again. Before you dive in, here [...]
I’ll cut straight to the point here: the way Federal government departments and agencies implement policy and reform isn’t good enough. Well-intentioned public servants operating in entrenched bureaucratic structures and traditional ways of working is failing the taxpayer. It is high time we had a serious crack at doing things differently. Does the APS [...]
The purpose of this e-book is to provide information to public service departments and agencies facing policy implementation challenges or considering programme or project management training. It is designed to help decision-makers: Determine whether programme or project management is relevant to the challenges faced; Have an awareness of global best practice programme and project [...]
I was running a client briefing recently, and something wonderful happened: an unstructured conversation broke out, and I was left standing in the corner as a spectator. I abandoned the remainder of the briefing slides, and joined the conversation where I thought I could contribute. Afterwards I reflected that this should be the norm, [...]
On 19th March the APS review shared its interim findings in the report Priorities for Change*. Aside from the findings, which have drawn out the usual bunch of Canberra has-beens and naysayers, the report says“…regardless of the richness of ideas about what needs to happen to prepare the APS for the future, making it [...]
On Tuesday 8th May 2018 the Federal Budget will be delivered. It will be totally transformed, a budget like no other you have seen before. The delivery will change, the structure will change, the content will change and the impact on departments and agencies from 1 July 2018 will represent a seismic shift in [...]
Last month I wrote a blog alluding to the treatment of benefits as a side order. I spoke about how some individuals and companies seem to want to make benefits management a black art, and advocated the need to go back to benefits basics. To me the most important of these basics is to: [...]
