Blog

Just as this blog entry in form of a book recommendation for “The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates” was finalized for publication, a devastating news became public – the author of the book in focus, Frans de Waal, had deceased. Primatologist Frans de Waal has contributed immensely to helping us, humans, see our species in a much broader context of our fellow primates, and also taking ourselves a little bit less seriously. As the Times journal put in 2007 when including Frans de Waal into its list of 100 individuals most impactful in transforming the world with their power, talent or moral example, “we may accept that we are descended from apes, but it takes the likes of de Waal to remind us that we haven't traveled that far”. These heartrending circumstances make me advocate for reading his books yet more adamantly. Thus, I rewrote the entry in the hope to spark more desire to delve into the fascinating world Frans de Waal opened for us....

Terms such as approach, methodology, method, and tool are the key concepts in project management. Sometimes they are treated as interchangeable and used as synonyms, which might save time but is not always a good idea as in some cases it brings confusion and thus impedes communication and understanding. At the same time, the clarity of communication remains one of the most essential elements for the successful realization of a project, so it makes even more sense to revisit the lingo....

Is your project two days before the launch and you seem to be the only one aware let alone excited about it? Are you one step from a major system migration, yet you keep hearing “but we didn’t know it’s happening this century”… Lack of communication is probably the most frequent issue one runs into. But is it really the general lack of it or is there something else to it? Let us talk today about the role communication plays in your stakeholder management and engagement in the context of a change project....

Did you hope to bring more stability in your operation, but ended up in total chaos? Or was the goal to bring about a technological breakthrough, but you caught yourself enslaved to sunk costs and the whole thing became a nightmare? It is a good practice to take a step back every now and then and look at the tools for what they are – not only to admire their sheer beauty, but also to adjust your approach. As this is one of those things that are so much more fun when done in a pleasant company, let’s get to it together today!...

In recent weeks, I heard quite a few top IT professionals saying the same phrase: “It’s not an IT issue!”. Sometimes uttered with amusement, sometimes with astonishment and indignation, sometimes in despair and sometimes in sheer disbelief that it is 2024 and yet this confusion persists. I decided to gather the most common IT-Issue-wannabies, look at the why behind the confusion and discuss what we can do about it....

Do you also have a sneaking suspicion that not all the months of the year were created equal? Instead, they evolve and develop at a very different pace. This pattern seems to repeat itself year in and year out as if it were an old play. So, without further ado, let me introduce the characters of this what-could-be play “The Clockwork Paradox, or The Hourglass Avalanche”....