By Dennis D. McDonald Here’s some light reading: the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General’s “Audit of the Project Management Accountability System Implementation.” Known as “PMAS,” the system was put in place in 2009 to provide better oversight of the VA’s troubled IT development projects. This was done in light ofRead… Read more »
Rick Phillips, owner of Arena Technical Resources and host of the Rick Phillips Open, was looking across his desk fifteen years ago and said, “You have two choices. You either recruit smart or manage hard.” Never seen Rick manage hard. I used that line a half dozen times in the past week. I wonder ifRead… Read more »
Day 23 This morning we had our regular engineering staff meeting. It was a pretty typical meeting with GIS sharing what they were doing and then our engineers and technical staff letting us know the status of all the projects. After our meeting, we started driving the roads to determine their condition. We also spentRead… Read more »
On my last day of working for the Federal government in a direct capacity I am going to focus on government for a change and look at innovation in a two-part article. There is simply too much good information to cover–even without getting terribly technical. This piece is mostly thanks to the folks at GovRead… Read more »
You’ve applied to everything that moves. You’ve polished your resume. You’re going for all the right job titles. You’ve pursued an advanced degree. You’re asking everybody if they are hiring and can get you ‘in’. You’re trying everything you know. But it’s not working. It’s frustrating, I know it is. I’ve been there. So why?Read… Read more »
A quick plug of this great workshop being delivered through the Public Sector Web Network (about which I will shortly have some very exciting news!). Social Media for Emergency Planning & Resilience Thursday 22nd September 2011, Park Plaza Hotel, Leeds This workshop is aimed at all Category 1 Responders as identified in the Civil ContingenciesRead… Read more »
Being a manager isn’t easy — especially when you’re confronted with tight resources and tough decisions. And being a manager is different from being a leader, right? Leaders cast an inspiring vision and empower people at an organizational level to achieve it. Managers are really the front-line supervisors responsible for ensuring the goals are executedRead… Read more »
As organizations become more complicated, success can often be tied to the degree to which an organization is responsive to customers. This generally happens on the front line. So empowering front line managers to solve problems without going up through the chain of command is an important leadership strategy. The September 2011 issue of theRead… Read more »
One of our clients swears the best thing I ever told him was to make a meeting before a scheduled meeting and make one after. As long as you’re in the building/neighborhood/country plan another stop. That means you need a stop-by rationale, tools, and research. However the meetings that create a favorable result are easyRead… Read more »
So despite the fact that I only left Vancouver once(!) in August, things have been quite busy. Lots of work. September and onwards is going to be a bear however. Lots of travel so I thought I would lay everything out in case their is overlap with readers, friends and/or clients who might be interestedRead… Read more »