Author Archives: Blue Raccoon
Making Baby Bear’s porridge : Dealing with the gold-plater on your team
What is a gold-plater? A commonly voiced frustration when you get a group of project managers together is dealing with gold-platers. To them, a gold-plater is someone who cannot finish their work and release it to the client. They have … Continue reading
When the going gets tough…….Overcoming the fear of failure
One of our biggest challenges in working with a team is keeping people motivated when things get hard. Why does one person work themselves into the ground doing far more work than is necessary, while another spends hours on … Continue reading
Old School Tricks for getting the best from your Project Management Conference
At the recent Ground Control conference, I was talking to some digital project managers who were saying how much they valued the conference, how enlightening it was to talk with other project managers and how important such self-development is, but … Continue reading
Are you the Project Hero? Or are you stuck in the Drama Triangle?
As a project manager or lead BA do you ever find yourself stuck in this role? There is conflict between other members of the team and you feel you must go and sort things out for them. This plays out … Continue reading
Am I doing my user stories right? The team aren’t getting it.
Recently I was working with a BA to explore why the user stories she is creating are not being followed by some of her team. About the Team She is in the situation many people in large organisations are in. … Continue reading
Business Change – The Kubler-Ross Model
My interest in change management and behaviour started with my very first IT project. Although the Project manager said the users wanted a new tool, just putting it out there meant it was ignored. At first, I couldn’t understand … Continue reading
Really Alexa?
I am coming across lots of articles waxing lyrical about how virtual assistants like Alexa or Cortana will change our lives, the way we interact with computers, companies and each other. These devices are incredibly popular and it is assumed they … Continue reading
The Sound of Silence
One of the most underrated techniques in running a workshop is just shutting up. Does this sound strange to you? You have pulled a workshop together to encourage people to share views and opinions and I am saying there … Continue reading
Getting Things Done
At a recent conference of digital project managers in Manchester one question I heard asked many times was “How do you organise yourself to get things done? And the answer that came up again and again (from those that had … Continue reading
The Business Analyst and Data Privacy
Having spent a number of years working in the pharmaceutical industry, I have often needed to work out the data privacy impact on the solution we were building. If you work in the finance or e-commerce domains I am sure … Continue reading