We’ve all worked on one – a project from hell. Here in their book, The Lazy Project Manager and the Project from Hell, the master of productive laziness, Peter Taylor, along with Michael Finer, share their ideas on how to undertake a workshop that will ultimately lead to the project from hell’s rescue.

We need a risk process that is simple and scalable, which can be applied across the organisation to manage all types of risk and we also need competent people, with the knowledge, skills and experience to deal with the risks that might arise. Infrastructure is also important and provides the tools to support risk management and handle significant amounts of risk data. However, none of these factors are as important as that of culture. 

Cape Town’s recently approved Cape Town Spatial Development Framework (SDF) has won the South African Planning Institute’s planning award for best municipal project. The award recognises the exemplary formulation and implementation of municipal Integrated Development Plans (IDP), spatial development plans and other forward-planning initiatives. 

Some people are just naturally good at managing projects. They are consistently able to deliver expected project outcomes within the time, scope and budget constraints they are supposed to. Given there are not always any obvious differences between good and bad project managers in terms of age, sex, education, qualifications, etc. one begs the question as to whether there are any behavioral attributes which can serve to predict, with reasonable accuracy, which people are likely to be ‘natural’ project managers.

Project managers require a mixed method management style, striking a balance between being democratic and being autocratic in order to keep complex projects running smoothly, within budget and on time.