Quote. Unquote. Project Management Essentials

In this month's Behind the Headlines (http://www.silicon.com/a53726) two former IT directors share their project management expertise. First they outline the reasons why many projects go awry. Then they offer some practical tips for success. Here's just a taster of what you can expect:

Liar, liar
"Any IT director who claims that they have never had an IT project failure is a liar. Every project I have worked on has failed in one way, shape or form. The important thing is to learn from those mistakes and go forward and pragmatically apply those lessons to future projects."
David Rippon, chairman, Elite

Suppliers, suppliers
"The best recipe for success is to get risk share/risk reward with suppliers. Get suppliers to put their money where their mouth is."
David Taylor, president, Certus

Embrace mistakes
"Employ a project manager who's made mistakes in the past because the people will have learnt and will build more success into the project next time round. What you need is pragmatic management of these projects."
David Rippon, chairman, Elite

Team work
"Put individuals in the project team based on the main strengths they have. Don't, for example, have five excellent communicators in the team who will argue all day."
David Taylor, president, Certus

For David Taylor and David Rippon's 'Top tips for IT project management success' click here: http://www.silicon.com/a53742

To watch the show, Behind the Headlines: Project Management Essentials click here: http://www.silicon.com/a53726