Here are some project management tips, which draw on years of investigative reporting. Read out the 22 things any IT Project Manager should know.
1. Projects with realistic budgets and timetables don't get approved
2. Activity in the early stages should be dedicated to finding the correct questions
3. The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the progress report
4. A user is somebody who rejects the system because it's what he asked for
5. The difference between project success and failure is a good PR company
6. Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it
7. Every failing, overly ambitious project, has at its heart a series of successful small ones trying to escape
8. A freeze on change melts when heat is applied
9. There's never enough time to do it right first time
10. You understood what I said, not what I meant
11. If you don't know where you're going, just talk about specifics
12. If at first you don't succeed, rename the project
13. Everyone wants a strong project manager - until they get him
14. Only idiots own up to what they really know (thank you to President Nixon)
15. The worst project managers sleep at night
16. A failing project has benefits which are always spoken of in the future tense
17. Projects don't fail in the end they fail at conception
18. Visions are usually treatable
19. Overly ambitious projects can never fail if they have a beginning, middle and no end
20. In government we never punish error, only its disclosure
21. The most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest
22. A realist is one who's presciently disappointed in the future
Some of the aphorisms are Computer Weekly's. Others are variations of sayings that have been known to project managers for years.
Baba