David Jago

Desperately seeking (successful) strategy

Strategy, almost by definition is about the big picture. It’s about being comprehensive, across the whole landscape of issues and opportunities, trends and events. Where have you used strategic thinking and planning to help your project team open up a new future? asks David Jago.

Questions from a project manager

Why would facilitative project managers be interested in the difficult art of questioning? David Jago says the quality of your questions is so important.

“After all: garbage in, garbage out. An oldie but a goodie. If you start with crap data, it can only go downhill from there.”

Dead horse strategies: when a project dies

When you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

This fairly well known piece of humour, contrasts ‘Dakota tribal wisdom’ with what supposedly happens in the corporate, government, and non-profit world.

Getting the right project information

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you have always gotten! That’s why really new outcomes need new thinking.

Creating a public project memory

‘Public memory’ refers to meeting notes kept visible to the whole group the whole time. Butcher’s paper, sticky notes and data projectors all help achieve this.

Planning a project meeting

A well planned meeting requires a commitment to excellent outcomes based on good preparation and strong design skills. I’m using meeting here to mean any kind of project conversation where the outcome matters.