Dylan de Blaquiere

  Dylan de Blaquiere | Organisations only exist to achieve something that individuals can't achieve alone. This involves coordinated, cooperative effort. In 1938, Chester Barnard, author of The Functions of the Executive, wrote "the only measure of a cooperative system is its capacity to survive". Despite its vintage, that seems like a valuable insight at the moment with the demise of so many household names over the last decade and many more to come during the current economic turmoil.   But how to measure an organisation's capacity to survive? Is it the age of the organisation? But that only measures historical capability to survive, not necessarily the current and future capacity. Is it a measure of vitality - like a doctor measuring vital signs: heart rate, blood pressure, blood composition, immune system, etc.? Measuring liquidity, cashflow, and any number of financial ratios are useful metrics. But, continuing the medical analogy, measuring vital signs help

  Dylan de Blaquiere   | Why do so many organisations embark on high-risk projects without demanding robust project assurance? Projects fail for many reasons. Recent global studies indicate that inadequate risk management is a common cause. Successful project managers aim to resolve high levels of exposure before they occur, via systematic risk management processes. Many projects are inherently exposed to myriad risks and are often significant in scale, complexity and ambition. Delivering large-scale projects can often be adversely impacted by a bias towards being over-optimistic. Imperfect, insufficient or inadequate data increases exposure that often results in over-estimating benefits and under-estimating costs. Managing macro and micro-level events related to achieving project deliverables, whilst balancing the needs of many stakeholders, has become increasingly important. Assessing risks at both portfolio and work-stream levels helps increase confidence that risks are