Saturday, July 27, 2013

New website for the new company

We launched our new website yesterday. Check it out and let me know what you think. It's still a work in progress and hopefully as a friend of mine once said, we won't let our shop front wait so long for a new coat of paint.

I must confess it took a lot longer than I expected. This is one of the interesting things about project management, as time management is the only unique management principle in project management, missing a deadline for most project managers means a failed project. Dr Kaye Remington's new book on complexity in project management focuses on this time management function but from a completely different perspective. It's called Kairos: Harnessing time and emergence in complex projects and as usual, is a cracking book full of excellent insights into what is success. It can be bought on Amazon as an e-book here.

I've long held the belief that a deadline is rarely the most important aspect of a project and that it is assessing this deadline with the emergence of value that is most important. The difference with Kaye is that she puts rigour around her suppositions and supports them with some great research. However, it is my belief that a project manager must always weigh up delay of linear time with the time value of money. This is where one recognises that a delayed product release (say for example a new company website) could have more value than an on-time release where the value proposition for the site has yet to emerge. It is very helpful to have a strong financial understanding of how to assess and value benefits as they emerge when implementing this balancing act.

We have compromised  with our new website release in a similar way. The value proposition is still to be finalised but it has started to emerge and I'm pretty happy with this launch so long as it's a first release and we keep developing the site until its full value is achieved. If left as is then the project would be a failure on both missing a deadline basis and missing the value in the idea.

So hopefully I will be blogging soon about a web update that will move use one step closer to value from the web and our overall business goals being achieved.

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