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Articles
Catalysis Group consultants have written articles for a variety of publications on topics related to software engineering, problem solving, organizational development, and project management. Some of our more popular articles are
available for download. Please note that Catalysis Group retains all rights to its intellectual property. These articles may be printed for personal use and distributed without charge within your public or private sector
organization, however copyright and contact information must be retained. Please contact Catalysis Group for permission to reprint commercially.
To view these articles, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader; if you do not have
it, follow the link below to download a copy.
Project Management Articles
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| A Losing Gamble with Public Funds
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| losinggamble.pdf
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| Explores organizational and structural issues with large public sector IT projects. Why are they so likely to fail & so difficult to cancel? This article appeared in the Cutter IT Journal in 2003.
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| CIO Agenda - Improve Sponsorship
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| CioAgenda_Sponsorship.pdf
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| Despite promises of the past, C-level executives (CEO, CIO, CFO) are still waiting for better project information to support their decision-making. This sponsorship prescription for CIOs originally appeared in a Cutter IT Journal issue focused on “The New CIO Agenda” (August of 2003). It describes a basic approach to assessing and improving project sponsorship that requires no enterprise tools or consultants.
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| Escaping the Clutches of Zombie Projects
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| Zombie.pdf
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| Why is senior management so often suprised by large scale project disasters? What can be done to change cultural attitudes to encourage timely and accurate status reporting? This article, originally appearing in STQE Magazine in September of 2001, tries to address these questions and provide communication tools to avoid Zombie Projects - Project that have died but refuse to lay down.
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| How to Avoid Project Failures
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| ProjectFailure.pdf
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| Many of the problems faced by projects
can be avoided, or at least contained, by effective project management practices. Using a “Top Ten”
list as a framework, this article highlights 10 of the most frequent reasons for project failure, and
examines some alternatives and remedies for each.
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| Risk - A Calculated Gamble (1 of 2)
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| calculatedgamble.pdf
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| This is the first part of a 2-part article on risk management that appeared in Software Testing & Quality Engineering in 2003. This article talks about overcoming organization's natural resistance to risk management.
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| Risk - Knowing the Odds (2 of 2)
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| knowingtheodds.pdf
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| This is the second part of a 2-part article on risk management that appeared in Software Testing & Quality Engineering in 2003.
This article offers a practical approach to identifying, analyzing and mitigating project risks that can be accomplished in an afternoon for many projects.
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| The Negative Side of Positive Thinking
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| NegativeSide.pdf
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| Positive thinking has its limits... in fact, it can work against open communication and risk management on a project when taken to extremes.
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| Changing the Hand You're Dealt
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| ChangingTheHand.pdf
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| This article, from December 2006 Better Software, talks about the tactic of redefining a problem to facilitate a solution. It has a software example inside, but a background in software isn't necessary to understand it.
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