Fistful of beans 02/09/2011

Five things I’ve seen, read, or thought might seed results: 1. Apple, With or Without Steve Jobs — Bloomberg Businessweek Perhaps there …

merger and acquisitions, project management, fail, Toby Elwin, blog

Mergers and acquisitions failures are project management failures

Mergers and acquisitions failures are really business strategy project management failures

No matter the motive for a merger or acquisition the real work comes with integration.

Similar to a project scope statement that identifies the success criteria for a project, the only way to identify success or failure is within the scope of the M&A goals.

Subsequently, the risk in mergers and acquisitions comes down to the ability of a team to deliver within budget, by a certain time, and up to project expectation (scope) and project failure rates for M&A deals are strikingly high.

van helsing, stakeholder, analysis, template, Toby Elwin, blog

Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; stakeholder analysis template

A stakeholder is anyone, or group, who can positively or negatively affect the outcome of the project. This post introduces two Excel template worksheets for stakeholder identification and management.

Prior to a project’s go-ahead this template identifies groups and individuals with a stake in the success, and failure. The effort makes sure we understand the key concerns and motivations of these audiences in order to mitigate risk to over-look or under-appreciate stakeholder position.