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Einstein Quotes

Apr 11

Posted by roy in Ideas, Life, the universe & everything | No Comments

einstein“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)

And lots more at: http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html

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Digiderata

Sep 18

Posted by roy in Featured, Ideas, Politics and Current Affairs, Technology | No Comments

Digiderata

Go cautiously amid the online world, yet always remember what joy there may be in connecting.

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Be alert to phishing and scams. Do not always use your true personal information. Be wary of signing up to many sites, it is a weariness of the inbox. Retain your right to privacy and exercise it.
Share with those you wish, but do not share too much. Above all, never post images of yourself or others in unguarded or intimate moments. Do not even create such images, or allow them to be taken, however relaxed you may be: those you consider your close friends may yet be too weak to resist the temptation to divulge. Obtain consent.
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Treat all netizens as you would wish to be treated. Consider how you would feel if malicious posts were made about you. Do not troll or flame, nor indulge in rumours or gossip. There is enough to laugh at without being mean. Be wary of virals.
Allow other people a forum. Even weirdos and technophobes have their views. However, question everything, take nothing at face value. Make friends online but do not trust anyone or any site or app just because they appear alright. You will always meet fakes and con artists. Learn a bit about how the technology works. Use tools that will protect you and and your data; they are often free.
Do not hack or steal someone’s work, however much fun that may be. Other people, even companies, have their rights: though you may not agree with their methods, there are other ways to protest. Yet bear in mind that the powerful often abuse their position. Campaign for the causes you wish; you have a right to speak up.
Try to produce content, not just consume. Anyone can contribute to their local or global culture. Learn. It has never in the history of humankind been easier to learn about everything, as it is now. Teach what you know, reaching out beyond your everyday circles. Praise the efforts of others.
The digital world is here for you to enjoy however you may choose: do not let anyone tell you otherwise, but exercise caution and self-discipline. You will make mistakes; and you may access things of which you will be ashamed. Be gentle with yourself as with others. Forgive yourself and move on.
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Don’t lose heart in the dark side of the web. Although it may not always appear so, no doubt our tech culture is unfolding as it should and a great age of connectivity is upon us. As in the real world, that which we feed, will grow. Therefore be a positive force.
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You are a child of the times and you have a right to be here: more so than the government and corporations and banks. Do not surrender your privacy and freedom to those who would deny them. It is your Internet, not theirs.
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For all its dangers and downtime, its phoneys and filth, it is still a beautiful net.
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Be careful. Strive to LOL.
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- Roy Hair, 2012
Creative Commons Licence Digiderata by Roy Hair is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at http://royhair.com/digiderata. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://royhair.com/digiderata.
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Original Desiderata by Max Ehrmann available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderata

Localism, open data, co-production, great ideas and veggie food!

Sep 21

Posted by roy in Customer First and Service, Ideas, Regeneration, ScotGovCamp | No Comments

Backside-covering-note: these are personal views, not necessarily those of my employer! I think it’s worth anyone attending events like this putting their thoughts “out there”.

I attended an event for local authorities today, hosted by Sue Bruce of Edinburgh City Council along with Jackie McKenzie of NESTA. Presentations were given by OpenlyLocal‘s Chris Taggart (@countculture) on the importance of opening up council data sets; and by Kirklees Council’s Diane Sims and Andrew Wilson on how they used open data to enable an local online venture called Who Owns My Neighbourhood. This latter project has resulted in an online map-driven database of information co-operatively contributed by local people on places in the Kirklees area, particularly aimed at collating data on ownership or stewardship of land areas, but expanding into a hyperlocal resource containing photos, stories, memories and facts about the area’s places. The council have opened up their datasets to enable this initiative and local groups are using the data to make better use of ‘spare’ land – green or redundant spaces – which they may not have otherwise realised was council-owned. Examples included using spare land for local fetes or sporting events and the possibility of converting land surrounding an old railway track to a cycle track. The same principle is applied to privately owned land. BTW, I got a chuckle at one of the Kirklees attractions : a “junk-modelling” activity for kids which sounds incredible fun!

The Who Owns my Neighbourhood site is mobile enabled, allowing on-the-ground lookups. An interesting way of engaging the local community was the use of a physical map and flag-stick-pins which could be used to attach stories to places, allowing contributions in the real world as opposed to solely the virtual.

Another idea of note came from Sue Bruce, who described how creating a database of local young people and their skill-sets has drawn praise from the business sector. This is a great initiative that would be transferable to any area. Sue reported that Edinburgh CC are now in contact with Nial Grant the creator of recruitwork.co.uk with the hope of partnering.

Chief Executive Niall Grant, a previous winner of the 'Young Scot of the Year for Enterprise' and a graduate of Sir Tom
Hunter’s 'Leadership Programme'. Whilst seeking summer employment as a student it became obvious to Niall that there was a disconnect
between businesses and talented young people. His desire was to develop a vehicle to simplify and streamline employment opportunities
for young adults.

Chris described how councils are opening up data sets on their spending , available via the openlylocal website. Councils are being encouraged to open up as much data as possible, if not all! The data sets should be exposed using malleable standards like xml, JSON, etc so that local people can manipulate it and build innovative developments that are of use to the community. The Who Owns My Neighbourhood initiative showed how opening up data on land ownership enabled the creation of a new community-led service that encourages greater participation in leisure, environmental and economic development opportunities.

In response to my question about how the use of open data might lead to service demand reductions instead of just allowing completely new initiatives that councils may see as an additional burden, Sue pointed out that the ePlanning agenda is a prime example of moving the effort of the planning process away from councils while improving service. Chris also pointed out that it is often impossible to predict the future benefits from initiatives until we try – a case in point being the establishment of libraries by philanthropists at a time when most people could not read. The mood is one of “build it and they will come”.

Another idea discussed was to draw inspiration from the Birmingham Civic Society.

I admit to being a little sceptical about entering into brand new initiatives that take time our hard-pressed council staff have little enough of, most especially since times are tough and getting tougher, yet no-one can fail to be inspired by the achievements from working outwith the bounds of council-only possibilities.

The Radical Scotland report produced in 2010 by NESTA addressed how services could be transformed to be delivered by radical means, for example the application of co-production in the social care services. Leaving aside the buzzwords and political frippery of Big Society, there might be areas where services can be delivered (or produced co-operatively) better by opening up to a more innovative mindset – as advocated in the report. One example cited is the use of Local Area Coordinators to mediate health and social service provision – a decentralising idea successfully applied to the navigation of services  for complex needs involving  individuals with mental or physical disabilities in Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire through Partners for Inclusion.

Janet rounded up by describing NESTA‘s aim to inspire and promote innovation through a new initiative to be launched in Scotland later this year. I won’t put down dates or funds here in case it steps on anyone’s toes.

Councils will be able to bid for support for innovative schemes that make use of data sets held by local authorities, encouraging re-use and re-purposing the data by involving the community and local enterprise. The initial idea is that 4 winning councils will be awarded the grants and support necessary to take the schemes forward, however the approach taken by NESTA is flexible and open to other suggestions. Assistance might include funding – either a local supplier; or a fund-a-teccie to work inhouse; or a hackday – also facilitation of promoting the scheme to ensure community involvement and other non-cash support.

In conclusion, a useful event, if just to hear the ideas. Shame it was limited to 2 hours. Perhaps more such events can take place. One such is the ScotGovCamp! Hosted this year by Ian Watt (@watty62), of Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeen University, it takes place this Saturday – 24th  Sept and is well worth a visit. See my previous post on last years event. This year they are including a hackday attended by the regulars of the Aberdeen Tech Meetup. Much kudos to Ian for organising this.

And another important but often overlooked point about the meeting today – they included a separate table of veggie sandwiches and snacks. Not only that – they included the superbly plain cheese and cucumber option, free of all that slimy gunk so beloved of business lunches, and it was a tomato-free zone. Well done Edinburgh CC!

 

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The Web is dead – interesting article on Wired

Aug 18

Posted by roy in Featured, Ideas, Life, the universe & everything, Social Media, Technology | No Comments

The Web is Dead

Wired publishes a great set of articles this month on the future of the Internet: With the rise of apps, paywalls or partitions like Facebook taking over large swathes of internet users and their time, the once-free net is being gradually divided up between big players.

The open Web-based freedoms to create, share and enjoy are being appropriated by proprietary behemoths – or beasts, if you harbour an eschatological bent – that will stamp on real liberties while permitting apparent freedoms in order to collate our consumer habits and our very souls in their vast, intrusive databases.

It comes just as Google – yes, even Google,  the “don’t be evil” custodian of inter-liberty – is proposing to redefine the principle of net neutrality so that some content (and providers) is prioritised over that of the little guys. ~So the protesters in the streets are saying. The small startups, the independent bloggers, the free-speakers, will find their ability to make their mark on the world compromised, gradually and insidiously. The big traditional media will once again own our hearts and minds, telling us what to think and who to believe and how to live, how to vote; and what to buy.

Will it come to pass? Is there anything we can do to stop it? It’s a great set of articles. Read it and weep:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_webrip/

My notes from #ScotGovCamp

Aug 3

Posted by roy in Ideas, ScotGovCamp, Social Media, Transformation | 2 Comments

ScotGovCamp was different! An unconference has no pre-agenda so it was hard to know exactly what to expect. As it turns out it we ended up with quite a lot to talk about! Open data, linked data, social media, the cuts, digital Scotland, the G-cloud, knowledge-hub etc etc. There were many clever people all trying to find the answer to their particular bugbear or strategy challenge or government gordian knot!

It was a great day with a clear thrust throughout to make our local and central government and the wider public sector more efficient, accountable, open and responsive to the future needs of our citizens. Debates arose around how best to achieve these grand objectives by overcoming barriers to progress. Of course current affairs squeezed in through the doors and trumpeted their presence loudly – the big society (whatever it really is) and the financial cuts loomed large over all. The following notes are my own thoughts and opinions.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Apparently the Total Place approach can save local govt £20bn

Jun 21

Posted by roy in Efficiencies and Savings, Ideas | No Comments

From the Guardian:

Huge savings of more than £20bn can be made in the cost of local services by looking at spending on all the local public services in an area, and not just council spending, the communities secretary, John Denham, claims.

His startling claim came after he digested reports at the weekend on 13 pilot schemes entitled Total Place that have looked at ending duplication and new ways of co-ordinating the provision of services.

The pilots, launched last July, appeared to have drawn enthusiastic support from politicians, councillors and public sector workers of all political persuasions.

Denham said better asset management alone could save £20bn over 10 years: “An average saving of around 5-6% just through better use of assets across the pilot suggests that this could potentially save in the region of £20bn nationally.”

He said: “Total Place is helping identify where blockages exist which prevent change across the board, overcoming the long-standing professional, cultural and funding barriers which have historically proved a big stumbling block to reform.

“It means a much more open debate about the best way to provide services locally.

“Rather than services protecting their own territory and budgets, it means switching resources between different providers. This cuts out duplication, waste and bureaucracy, saving professionals’ time and services’ money – running into millions of pounds – which can be reinvested.

“But it also improves people’s experience, so they get a genuinely seamless service.”

With local government finances likely to be under intense pressure over the next few years, it will be a test for Denham to see how much of the savings can be retained by local government rather than swallowed up by the Treasury.

Each pilot has been a mapping exercise working out total public spending in a specific area, such as children’s health, alcohol or crime. Examples include:

• Central Bedfordshire and Luton found just 2% of offenders cause nearly 30% of all crime locally and it costs about £500,000 a year for each persistent and prolific offender. The cost of local crime was £147m. The pilot found that benefits, prison, housing and probation services did not co-ordinate their help after offenders were released from jail. The pilot also found there were 52 different benefits available like housing benefit or job seekers allowance and it took three weeks to process a new claimant. Many offenders claimed they were forced to re-offend.

• Birmingham city council found children in care – who make up 2% of the city’s child population – cost £35m a year while each of Birmingham’s 6,400 crack addicts costs £833,000 in wider “social costs” over their lifetime. The city’s total annual budget is £7.5bn.

• Kent county council estimated a third of the current total cost of administering an unemployment claim could be saved by simplifying the system.

• Leicester city council found it spent £4.9m on alcohol interventions, and £13.4m on combating drug misuse, even though alcohol was a larger cause of crime.

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Payment for Success – report by KPMG

Jun 9

Posted by roy in Customer First and Service, Ideas, Systems Thinking | No Comments

The KPMG “Payment for Success 2010″ report, advises that a radical programme of empowerment for customers and  suppliers incl. rights-to-bid for any other organisations services, management buy-outs, freedom of budget management will provide enormous savings. This might give an insight into how the Westminster Govt will try to introduce a market economy into public services.

While this is perhaps too radical - or politically motivated - a step it is interesting how they quote reports showing massive savings from Business Process Improvements, for example the Lean approach. To make this work requires realigning not only the business processes, but how budgets are handled as well.

It argues that most UK public service providers currently lack the incentive and autonomy to realise the huge productivity improvements that are possible. The paper entitled “Payment for Success  – How to shift power from Whitehall to public service customers”  identifies seven critical issues in the way public services in the UK are currently provided and goes on to suggest how to change the system by incentivising providers to offer public services in a more cost effective and efficient manner – Neil Rimmer, IDeA

 

The scale of these variations in unit costs is supported by many efficiency studies done across government. For example, the Government’s Operational Efficiency Programme review in 2009 consistently pointed to potential savings of up to 30% – based on benchmark comparisons. It reported that frontline lean programmes had shown in pilots that they could reduce costs by 30% or more, whilst protecting customer service. For example, the NAO has recently said that DWP can reduce costs by 15-30% via its lean programme. Similar figures have been identified by pilots in justice, defence and HMRC. The OEP reports that Government uses 31% more office space per head than good practice and that public sector case studies show the potential for 30% reductions in back office costs. Given that the Gershon review 5 years earlier identified similar potential savings, there is clearly a problem about realising such potential savings.

KPMG-Payment-for-Success-Report-2010

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Idea: Council Tax & Rent rebates / rewards lottery for Payers

May 27

Posted by roy in Efficiencies and Savings, Ideas | No Comments

There is an outstanding Council Tax and Rent debt. It costs the council to chase this debt.

An alternative may be to offer a cash lottery – effectively a rebate – for frequent payers. Anyone who pays in a given month (or else just by DD) would be entered into the draw. The cash sum would have to be significant but not so large as to remove the aditional revenue generated.

City of Edinburgh council have announced they are doing this for DD payers only. I think their problem might be that winning a year’s free CTax will not be an incentive to non-payers! It would be better to term it a cash prize instead.

 

 

From the Edinburgh website: 

Win One Year’s Free Council Tax!

 

 Five lucky winners will win one year’s Council Tax for free in a very special competition.

All customers who sign up to pay their annual bill by direct debit will be entered into the exciting prize draw – which will take the burden out of paying the bill for a whole year.

There is still time to be in with a chance of winning this exclusive prize as all customers signed up before 31 May will be entered into the draw for free.

Councillor Phil Wheeler, Finance and Resources Convenor, said: “With everyone leading busier lives nowadays, paying council tax by direct debit definitely saves time and effort. It is convenient too as payments can be spread over 10 or 12 months. I would like to wish all the entries in the prize draw good luck in winning this exciting and valuable prize.”

More and more people seem to be signing up to pay by direct debit every year as it is both safe and flexible. Customers can also choose from 4 payment dates in a month.

The Council stopped accepting cash and cheque for Council Tax at the start of the 2010/11 financial year. By receiving customer’s payments by direct debit, the Council can improve the service we provide as less time and money is spent processing payments.

For further information and to set up a direct debit log on to: www.edinburgh.gov.uk/counciltax or call: 0131 469 5000.

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Council tax rebates possible reward for citizens who help…

May 27

Posted by roy in Efficiencies and Savings, Featured, Ideas | 1 Comment

Lambeth council to offer Council Tax rebates to citizens who help run services.
The Labour-run “co-operative council” is trialling the idea which may be an election pledge for Labour at the next election. They are calling it a “John Lewis” council.

Lambeth has set up a citizens’ commission to consult residents over what services could be delivered collaboratively, and how those involved could receive an “active citizen’s dividend”, possibly a council tax rebate.

The council has launched a wiki website, on the model of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, where officials and residents can jointly write and edit policy ideas, which within hours gained its first contributors. Ideas are also being sought via Twitter and Facebook.

From the Guardian:

A key impetus to the new model was the prospect of swingeing funding cuts, said the council leader, Steve Reed, which left Lambeth – one of the UK’s most deprived areas – facing unpalatable options including reduced services or council tax rises. Earlier co-operative ventures such as tenant-managed housing estates and the transformation of a crumbling former comprehensive school into a community-run sport and culture centre showed there was another option, he said.

“What we hope is that this can actually produce more effective services for less cost. It’s not a universal panacea, but it’s a model we already know works. We don’t have all the answers, which is why we’re asking all these questions. But we do have an idea of the basic principles.”

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A blog from Glyn Lumley “HR Maverick” on performance related pay etc

May 24

Posted by roy in Efficiencies and Savings, Ideas, Tweets | No Comments

Nice post, Glyn. RT @glynlumley ‘Um .. I can’t take that, I cheated’. New post at my blog http://bit.ly/am1VDf #in #hr #cipd #deming

Why Performance Related Pay should not be used in the public sector..

http://www.glynlumley.co.uk/wordpress/

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programme and change management event

Apr 28

Posted by roy in Efficiencies and Savings, Ideas, Transformation | No Comments

Last week I attended the Programme and Change Management (Benefits Realisation) event in Glasgow, organized by the Improvement Service. The day was attended by reps from all 32 Scottish LA’s. I was one of the very few IT bods in attendance, mostly it was change managers and corporate business folk. They looked at how to change council’s business practices in order to realize benefits and although in a sense the boat has sailed on this and real cuts are coming, a couple of the speakers were good enough to inspire debate.

Because it was relatively interesting (for this type of thing), I thought I’d share some notes with you (attached).

Roy

More information incl Peterborough Business Cases available at their Infobank website.

Programme and Change Management Event – Notes on two interesting speakers

  1. Presentation by Paul Tonks, Director of Transformation, Peterborough Council

Peterborough similar to medium sized Scottish LA:  £230m budget and 6,500 staff.

Introduced Programme Management Office (PMO) and Transformation  programme in 2006; on instigation of depute leader, with target of £24m savings over 3 years. Target achieved.

Seconded key staff to central PMO. Consultants / partners appointed: AMTEC and  V4 Services via OGC catalyst framework.

6 staff in PMO + 6 consultants / partners / associates on a project by project basis. Plus 3 non-transformational people. 76 projects.

PT worked for V4 and was eventually seconded to work for Peterborough. Now he is Director of Transformation.

Established an Invest to Save fund of £1m. “Dragons Den” model for bids, with ROI < 3 years. To get a slice of the initial investment, the bidding SRO must immediately surrender the projected savings from their budget (this encourages success!). In reality it can take up to a year for this budget reduction to kick in. Only repeatable savings allowed. Staff engagement via this competition for ideas.

Programmes:

Growth and Infrastructure

Procurement

Shared Services

Efficiency

Corporate BPR

Customer Services

Sneakily, they worked on the first project – “Manor Drive plc”- for 3 months behind the scenes – it’s success built trust that the model of providing savings would work. Also, they simply ignored all HR standards and internal policies to establish their Manor Park project. They found HR to be a barrier to progress, coming up with reasons not to proceed and ingrained attitudes were to work against rather than with the unions. Contracts were renegotiated without HR involvement and head of HR left the council. Unions were consulted and welcomed the changes.

Transformation is the integral tool for delivering Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS). Business transformation programme means that savings are centrally apparent, no silos, and the investment-led approach means that there is no across-the-board slicing of budgets with a broad brush.

Manor Drive project brought together corporate back office services “into a single coherent structure”. Called it “delayering” the BO. Now extending across all services. Childrens Services has expressed interest and will be next for rollout. Changed BO into a business!

Governance

  • Directors Group – overseers – chair: Director of Transformation (PT)
  • Governance Board – manages all council projects > £50k (cap or rev). chair: head of Finance
  • Savings Board – manages delivery of transformation projects, interventions etc. chair: Head of Customer Services
  • Programme Team – chair : senior programme manager

Every project >£50k capital or revenue goes through the Project Gateway process.

All projects tracked in Verto system developed by Peterborough CC and TMI systems – it’s a big spreadsheet on the web, hosted and supported with structure and reporting. Seems simple and powerful. £3k pa for 20 seats, or £25k site-licence and £5k pa.

Also have a Performance Management system ,and although they use it for PI’s etc,  this is not connected with the Transformation programme and PT was derogatory.

Speaking to PT, he revealed that to stuff all the people into Manor Drive, they used a monitoring tool from BT which monitored how long and when people were actually at their desks. They could use these figures to show that they could reduce the office space significantly and make savings. Also introduced agile and home working (renegotiated contracts ignoring HR).

Questions / answers session

PT said right from the start they stated that they would be making people redundant and redeploying people. The unions had been frustrated at the previous barriers to change and came on board. Where they previously saw services being outsourced for the wrong reasons (outsourcing risk / culpability rather than service improvement).

Peterborough have an ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) called City Services. There were interfaces with this, but it was outside the scope of the Manor Park project.

Management team have their performance monitored by signing a new contract so SROs must deliver. Because they have had their budget removed, they must make the saving. There is a some slack from the transformation budget where necessary. 70% of projects achieve savings.

You have a year until you close accounts so redundancies not straightaway . Calculate benefits as Net position, not Gross position (I don’t understand this).

Centralising benefits and taking budget avoids double-counting of benefits.

Investment led approach allows pump-priming,  paying upfront for business cases to be produced.

Cost avoidance and notional savings not counted.

As a result of Manor Drive, the council’s company has won 2 tenders to provide local BO services in Peterborough.

Contacts

We can ask for a demo login for Verto system

Paul Tonks, Head of Business Transformation

paul.tonks@peterborough.gov.uk

Telephone: 01733 452471

Sally Howe, V4 Services Limited

sally.howe@V4services.co.uk

Telephone: 07912 517093

Chris Wright, TMI Systems Limited

chris.wright@tmisystems.co.uk

Telephone: 07799 656101

  1. Stephen Jenner, director Criminal Justice IT portfolio unit
    (profile: http://www.stage-gate.com/SG_Summit/SGLS_Faculty.php )

The final speaker was Stephen Jenner who presented on the topic “Benefits Realisation….a fool’s errand?”

Steve’s presentation was interesting and wry, underlining the point that it is only possible to realize benefits when you have defined, clearly and honestly, what those benefits will be.

He called upon various expert papers by government officials and academics who decry the lamentable businesss practices we all fall subject to. For example, all business cases tell lies: “the planned, systematic, deliberate misstatement of costs and benefits to get projects approved….that is lying”.

There is a demonstrated, systemic tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic.  This is a worldwide phenomenon that affects both the private and public sectors…appraisers tend to overstate benefits, and underestimate timings and costs.” HM Treasury

Forecasts are “highly, systematically and significantly misleading (inflated).  The result is large benefit shortfalls”.

Flyvbjerg

“Delusional optimism: we overemphasise projects’ potential benefits and underestimate likely costs, spinning success scenarios while ignoring the possibility of mistakes.” Lovallo and Kahneman

He pointed out some ways to cut through the potential problems:

  • “Strategic alignment” is no justification for investment. Will any business case not align with strategy?!
  • Be clear about the benefits from the start and what kind of benefits they are.
  • Saving employee time is not a benefit – they are only “vouchers”. It is what we do with that time that determines  the resulting benefit.
  • Use rigorous stage Gates during projects
  • Use the business case as a measure at each stage / phase to ensure clear line of sight
  • Use summary documentation – size is the enemy to understanding – the bigger a business case, the less useful it is! One page business cases?!
  • Post-implementation reviews provide an organisation with learning from past mistakes that would otherwise be lost. I;m not sure how this would be best communicated.
  • Independent reviews:
    • Ayers suggests an, “‘Advocatus Diaboli’… whose job it is to poke holes in pet projects.  These professional “No” men could be an antidote to overconfidence bias.”
    • Davidson Frame proposes the use of “murder boards” to pull a proposal apart to, “make sure that arguments in support of project ideas do not have built into them the seeds of their own destruction.”
    • Steve Jenner – I suggest a ‘fool’ to ask the questions others don’t dare to ask and identify those, ‘assumptions that masquerade as facts’. “Be wise enough to play the fool”.

While you could argue that Steve is dressing up some common-sense principles in order to make a living as a public speaker, nevertheless he convincingly makes points that lend a note of valuable caution to the justifications and programme management of every organization.

My notes in Word format

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