Martin Vaughan

Separating project managers from governance decisions

The idea of project governance is well-discussed, but what role should a project manager play in decision-making? Martin Vaughan says to leave that part to the steering committee or project board.

Implementing an enterprise project management tool

Enterprise project management, also known as portfolio project management (PPM) tools have many functions, but how many of them do we really need? Martin Vaughan suggests an approach that will make tools useful rather than baffling.

How secure are your project tools?

How exposed is your project information? What security do you need? If only we focused more on user education than technology to protect our projects, writes Martin Vaughan.

The changing face of project collaboration

Society is embracing new technology, but as we do, social interaction gradually changes. In the project management space, professional interaction is also changing. Martin Vaughan charts this new paradigm and how it may affect communication on projects.

Project schedules: the good, the bad, and the pretty

What makes for a quality project schedule? Martin Vaughan sifts through the good, the bad and the ‘pretty and colourful’ to find the perfect balance, and laments the lost art of project scheduling.

Can we automate project governance?

Is it really possible to automate governance when implementing a project planning matrix system? Martin Vaughan discusses workflow versus high level decision-making.

“The business needs to make a decision as to the relative priority of the initiative, assuming it goes ahead. Priorities will always inspire debate and discussion.”

The improbable project estimation tool

I’m dreaming of an estimating tool…

• * Which is easy to use
• * And doesn’t cost too much
• * Which provides a repeatable output
• * And caters to the needs of finance (e.g. capex vs opex)… is it possible?

Managing risk and contingency

I was recently interviewing a risk management specialist and was intrigued to find that although he had a huge amount of knowledge about risk and issues management, he had very little knowledge of contingency.