I was speaking to a client on the phone. It was an agreed follow up call asked for by the client 3 months ago. The conversation went something like thi.

Client: Our training budget has been cut unfortunately.

Me: Just to reflect back, you told me there is lots of change in the company. You also mentioned that there is a need to train people to deliver projects; the projects that will contribute to the changes.

Client: That’s right.

Me; If you have a £100,000 piece of kit that is new to the company my guess is that you would train people in its use.

Client: Yes we would.

Me; You have several projects that will cost well over the figure mentioned and you have people who need training to deliver them. I have several questions:

• Why allow projects to be delivered by untrained project managers?
• What do you think the probable of success will be?
• How risky is this approach?
  
  

Client……silence….(effectively the end of the conversation)

The project management conundrum.

How do we increase the probability of project success? You tell me!