helping you master customer insight leadership

3 more podcasts, to help analytics leaders master project management

master project management

Do you feel that you master project management, or at the mercy of project rollercoasters?

As Tony has shared in his 2 part series, everything from adequate planning & motivation to sponsor management & communication can make a difference. So, with so many tricks of the trade to learn, how do busy data & analytics leaders keep up to speed. How can you invest in project management CPD?

In previous posts on CPD for leaders like you, we’ve recommended books and other resources, including podcasts. You may recall our previous reviews recommending podcasts:

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Tips for managing a project, more advice from experience with real world projects

managing a project

Continuing our series of practical tips for managing a project. In this post guest blogger, Tony Boobier, shares five more tricks of the trade.

If the previous four tips focussed on managing the workload, these five are more people focussed. A useful addition to our previous posts on Stakeholder Management & Stakeholder Engagement.

Over to Tony to share his final tips. One’s that I have seen are important for those managing data or analyst projects too. Here is more of what Tony learnt from managing that large programme… (more…)

How you judge your progress and resources for your 2019 ambitions

Thanks to all those readers who participated in our latest poll, of your progress last year. Initial results are in, so let me share them with you all.

It has been fascinating to review your answers, especially compared to the results from last year. It seems there have been some changes.

The questions asked in this survey were selected to shed light on actual practice compared to advice shared on this site. For that reason, in each section I will share the results of our survey and also related posts that should be of interest.

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Succeeding with projects – 4 tricks of the trade to help project managers

tricks of the trade

How many of your projects have failed? This series of two blog posts from Tony Boobier shares tricks of the trade to succeed at projects or programme management.

Why would I dare suggest that your projects may have failed? Well research by Couchbase has shown that 9 out of 10 Digital Transformation  projects fail. So, given how long IT teams have been working at managing projects, it’s to be expected that many data or analytics projects fail too.

In this series, Tony shares his experience of what made the difference. Apparently he authored this over a glass or two of wine – so let’s indulge some self congratulation at the start! Over to cheery Tony… (more…)

Checking in on how you ‘ran your race’ last year, a poll to reflect on your goals

poll to reflect one your goals

Following a month focussed on goal setting & different methods for reviewing your progress, its time for a poll to reflect on your goals.

I hope our posts on different approaches to reviewing your progress have helped. Did you find a method that suited you better? As a reminder, our advice has included:

But, before finalising your new goals & plans for 2019, have you taken time to learn from 2018? Have you reviewed how you did, against last year’s goals & why?

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On Setting Goals & the signposts that make good progress happen

signposts

To finish off our series of guest posts on setting goals, here are some useful signposts from William Buist.

William has joined us before as a guest blogger, to share on topics as diverse as GDPR, office environments & questioning.

In this post, he draws on his personal experience, as well as what he has learnt as a business mentor. William encourages us to look beyond our goals to our journeys. Are you setting goals in a way that makes them more than fantasy?

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Speaking of Speaking – how a book can really improve your performance

speaking

Is speaking part of your role? Ok, silly question, few roles avoid verbal communication. I mean public speaking in front of groups of people.

Those who have grown in leadership career or influence as an analyst will know that giving presentations comes with the territory. Yet few people relish the opportunity.

Apart from a few frustrated actors, most people have a degree of fear when it comes to public speaking. In my experience that is not helped by some of the advice & resources out there.

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