Rich, B.R. and Janos, Y., Skunk Works, Little Brown and Company, New York, 1994

I have had this book in my library for quite some time and although I've browsed it before, I recently had the opportunity to actually read it. Why I didn't read it earlier, I just don't know because it is just so full of stories and wisdom on many levels.

For those who don't know - the Skunk Works were (are still?) a top secret Lockheed shop for the design, development and manufacture of advanced and innovative aerospace systems.

Camrass, R. and Farncombe, M., Atomic: Reforming the Business Landscape into the New Structures of Tomorrow, Capstone Publishing Limited, UK, 2004

Atomic attempts to identify the future business construct based upon trends identified today. Camrass and Farncombe take the analogy of an "atom" that can become part of larger molecules to form value adding business structures. These are more agile and focused organisations than the monolithic businesses today.

I said in a previous blog (The Value of a Program of Projects) that projects are a way of ".....pulling one or more of the levers of revenue, expenses or investment in a "controlled" manner. Because projects are a deliberate and "controlled" mechanism that supports proper governance with defined expenditure, risks, schedules and outcomes or benefits."

I just wish to provide more insight into what I said above.

One of my goals in life is to illustrate the value of projects to the general management fraternity. Perhaps more accurately, explaining the value of project management to executives. For a number of years now I have been "monitoring" the level of acceptance of project management into the broader management community. I do this by looking for project management books in the management "guru" sections of bookshops. I must say .... I am yet to find one devoted solely to project management. Normally the project management books are in the IT section or the academic sections. It's an interesting "index" which I have started to call the "PM guru status" index.

I have often seen "program managers" simply manage a group of projects by overseeing each of the projects in their program. They act as a sort quality control of the project outcomes and perhaps oversight the scheduling and financials of each of their projects. In some cases they are more a hindrance to the progression of a project as they place a layer of bureaucracy over the project staff rather than a layer of coaching or mentoring or assistance.

Let's now look at doing this across many instances.  Doing this across multiple Vehicles and Systems means we have a program of projects with various Vehicles and Systems.

Moving on from Defining a Project. If we are to look at the Vehicle in a bit more detail we can see that it should follow what might be called a classic "project" process. Something like the below illustration where it has distinct phases leading to closure. In this case a simple Initiate, Plan, Execute and Close.

A short while back, I was asked by a business colleague to assist in providing an insight into how an organisation could handle their knowledge asset better and how they could weave a network of advisors and small/medium enterprises.

A short brief on Leveraging Web 2.0 for Government Service Delivery. It was developed to provide a short overview to provide government executives an insight into how Web 2.0 can assist and is also used as a handout for HolisTech's one hour executive overview.

Additionally, from what I can see, project management is not really an accepted "management" discipline. Although, there are some moves by the various project management bodies and professional associations to get project management recognised as a profession.