Thatcher memories.........

Thirty years ago this week on the 3rd May 1979 Margaret Thatcher was elected as Prime Minister of Great Britain as leader of the Conservative party.

Were you around then ? I was. I was in the 6th form at school facing a gloomy future of mass unemployment and industrial strife.

The late '70's was a grim time in Britain with mass strikes and an industrial culture which was well recognised as the "sick man of Europe"; Thatcher changed all that battling the Unions head on and introducing legislation regarding secondary strike action which has still not been repealed today.

The pinnacle of industrial strife was the miners strike of 1984 - 1985 which ended with the defeat of the mineworkers and the closure of the vast majority of pits.

I was brought up in a mining village and remember well the despair and poverty that resulted, those communities would never be the same again.

However, I also remember some other things, how, for the first time, working class people were allowed to buy their own homes from the council at a knock down rate and how those homes were improved by their proud owners, new windows and doors, hanging baskets, painted railings, small things which gradually improved the appearance and standards of the area.

Years later I would read about the poverty of common ownership with understanding.

Thatcher's policies created a spirit of entrepreneurship and competition which fuelled more than a decade of economic growth in which we all shared and prospered. Tony Blair was Thatcher's natural air. Sure, we're all paying the price now with the "Credit Crunch" but let's not get all maudlin and blame the bankers for everything, after all Capitalism is a cyclical system so what do you expect, the thing is whats the alternative, Communism ? Socialism ? Anarchy ? Ha !

Who can forget her leadership too, when the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina Thatcher had no qualms about setting up a task force to recapture the islands flying in the face of weak National and International opposition. We can all question that decision but first ask the Falkland Islanders what they think.

Whatever your memories of Margaret Thatcher there is no doubt - the Lady was not for turning !

Time to Market - the real cost of delay.

Anyone involved in New Product Introduction (NPI) knows how critical time to market is but do they know how to quantify it?

If a product has a predicted lifecycle of two years the assumption must be made that sales will cease 2 years after product launch i.e at product "death".

If the launch date is delayed by 2 months the original product "death" should remain the same. Any product will only be viable until its successor is released by its originator or the competition. The result is a loss of 2 months of sales which will have a real monetary value. This is a perfectly reasonable proposition as there is no logic in assuming that the competitors next product will be late just because yours is !

This enables us to quantify project delays in terms of real dollars. Great news for Senior Management but also good news for the project manager as it allows us to justify additional project resource or equipment in order to meet the original project timescales.

Remember - if your Senior Management has not provided the resource you budgeted for to bring the project in on time quantifying time to market losses in monetary terms is a great leveraging tool.

Grand National Economy

Today at 4.15 BST at Aintree racecourse in the North West of England forty horses set off in one of the greatest sporting spectacles on earth. Millions will watch world wide hoping and preying that their horse will cross the line first and their investment will be rewarded.

This race is (in)famous for the number of fallers which occur throughout the race and it is not uncommon for two thirds of the starters not to finish. It is ferociously competitive and the jockeys are fearless as they soar over the huge fences without knowing what lies on the other side.

The roar of the crowd propels the riders on until the field is strung out and the final few battle it out up the final rise towards the finish line.

Its all a bit like the economy with competing firms thrashing it out over the ever undulating financial landscape. Many of the jockeys of these steeds appear to be blind as they leap into the unknown and many will fall over the course of events but some will prevail to bring home the bacon for their investors.

In hindsight how many will prevail because of good planning, excellent management, customer focus and quality product and how many through pure good fortune.

Whatever race your in - Good Luck !!

No longer a teenager......

The world wide web is twenty years old today - wow !!

As someone over the age of 40 I can remember when I first encountered email about 15 years ago and when I developed my first website on a 386 Mz laptop with 4M RAM !!

Of course my kids take it all for granted & I bore them all to death explaining how a hyperlink works.

But just take a few moments to think about the revolution which has occurred over the last 20 years. The information which is available at the click of a mouse, the ability to send instant messages to someone on the other side of the world, the ability to publish and be damned.

The international barriers to communication will never be erected again, the progress to democracy is inevitable, the freedom to publish and debate can never be censored.

Of course not everything about the web is great, we all know the dangers it can present to sensitive minds and like everything else can be a force for evil as well as good. (& I choose those terms deliberately)

When I've finished this article I will place a link on Twitter & hopefully some of you out there will read it and ponder.

Happy Birthday World Wide Web !!!!!

10 reasons you should be a project manager..........

1) You schedule everything.......including your sex life.

2) You can make a cup of tea, butter toast & put your tie on simultaneously (female project managers can do even more!)

3) Your thoughts are constantly 6 months in the future.

4) You can claim credibility for the actions of your team members with a totally clear conscience.

5) Your partner doesn't understand what the hell you're talking about.

6) People ask you what a Project Manager does and you struggle to answer.

7) If a project goes really, really well everyone wonders why.

8) You know what its like to be the sh*t in the sandwich.

9) Your a jack of all trades and master of none.

10) You're so thick skinned you could be a rhinoceros.

Zen and the art of Project Management...

(with apologies to Robert M Pirsig)

In a previous role I was a Project Manager on a complex electronics product which had a number of unique features, it was the first product to use an external wafer fab and it was also packaged in a new SOT pack never used before by our company. The team comprised design engineers, marketeers, quality personnel, test engineers and various others with an interest in the product. Quite a challenge and one which I thoroughly enjoyed.

After 9 months hard work by everyone involved the project was delivered within the agreed timescales. A fantastic achievement for all the team.

A couple of weeks later I was at a Senior Management shindig when a very Senior guy in the company commented that the project had went very well and came in on time, which was fantastic but did I have any idea why ?

Not wishing to blow my own trumpet I suggested that perhaps the project manager had done a good job.

This was met with a perplexing look followed by muted congratulations and a swift exit.

It made me think that the more effective the project manager the more invisible he/she becomes.

A Zen moment indeed.

Is it time to reduce outsourcing .......???

As the credit crunch increases its grip on the world economy is it time to review your outsource strategies ?

Over the last decade we have seen increasing levels of outsourcing in the U.K to the point where very little of our electronic goods are actually manufactured in the U.K. This has led to a loss of manufacturing jobs, the impact of which is being felt particularly harshly at the moment. However it could be strongly argued that many more R&D jobs would have been lost had outsourcing of manufacture not been widely adopted.

The U.K (& indeed the U.S) still remain major centres for R&D in the industry and we lead the world in innovative solutions.

There is no doubt also that the outsourcing of manufacturing activities has greatly benefited the consumer, just look what you can get for your money in terms of mobile phones, digital cameras, widescreen T.V's, etc etc

This is a good time to review our outsourcing strategy and every company will have a different response, what you outsource depends on your core skills and capabilities, your views on IPR and the needs of your customers.

In our view outsourcing remains a key fundamental strategy bringing benefits to the OEM and the consumer.