Philip Smith Blog

Marketing and project management links

Posted by Philip Smith on 31 January 2017

The importance of Project Management During the past few months I have had the good fortune to spend some time with clever people who operate businesses in the marketing space. One way or the other they cover every aspect of marketing in all forms including the ubiquitous "social media" component. Always eager to learn I asked many question and gained some valuable insights into the core of their activities. I was amazed at the complexity of the work they do and the number of diffe...

Posted in:Project Management

Simple solutions work

Posted by Philip Smith on 4 January 2017

Why is this still a mystery

Large project failures follow a depressingly repetitive narrative.

Symptoms are used to cast blame and Causes are ignored to protect the incompetent and their oversized egos.

There is a simple solution, change the management involved in the project.

Albert Einstein said "The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." - the same is true for all projects that become problematic.

Posted in:Management

Project success

Posted by Philip Smith on 19 December 2016

The difference

When we have a good team, projects succeed despite poor processes and systems.

With the best processes and systems, projects will fail when we have a dysfunctional team.

Posted in:Project Management

Why we are in trouble

Posted by Philip Smith on 28 November 2016

We should be worried It has been some time since I learnt basic arithmetic but I suspect 2 Plus 2 still makes 4. Then again, maybe my ignorance is so great that I missed the bit where this changed to some other number. The media speculates endlessly on matters that are not as they should be, even when the report only tries to exploit the pathetic outcomes. They never explore the core reasons that underpin these failures, there is no time, no budget and mostly no interest, but I...

Posted in:Stupid-File

He who makes the rules

Posted by Philip Smith on 24 November 2016

We should take our lessons from wherever we find them. Today while driving with my grandson in the back of the car, we played one of his favourite games. The game is called spotto, where should you see a yellow car, you shout Spotto and get one point. I claimed a "spotto" for a van that was yellow with a white roof. He immediately corrected me and stated that I could not do this as it was not all yellow. He followed this up by explaining to me that he could claim it as a spotto...

Posted in:Lessons from a 5 year old