By David A. SchmaltzThis book on the art of project management identifies incoherence as the root cause of the difficulties many experience. The author explains the inability of a group of people to make common meaning from their common experience with the use of the familiar story of the six blind men trying to describe an elephant to each other. He presents a set of simple, proven techniques that all can use to increase their projects’ coherence and overcome common project difficulties. Schmaltz exposes such oft-cited difficulties as poor planning, weak leadership, and fickle sponsors and customers as poor excuses for project failure. He provides a set of simple, project coherence-building techniques that anyone can use to achieve success. He explains how “wickedness” develops when a team over-relies on their leader for guidance rather than tapping their true source of power and authority- the individual.
The 42 newly launched Criminal Justice Boards are facing major challenges in fulfilling their role of supporting change management. The Audit Commission has identified the three major issues they must respond to if they are to succeed. The Boards are made up of chief officers from the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Probation Service, magistrates and crown courts, as well as senior representatives from the Prison Service and youth offending teams.The role of the Boards is to help all bodies in the crime fighting partnerships to achieve their public service agreement targets. Most of which are based around securing an increase in the number of offenders brought to justice, reducing the number of failed trials, and improving public confidence in the criminal justice system.
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A survey of public attitudes to central and local government found that 70 percent of the public has little or no confidence in national Government’s ability to spend money wisely on public services in their area. Trust in local Governments’ ability to address public service problems relevant to them was also low with 65 percent declaring little confidence. The research was commissioned by the Local Government Association and hbl media, and carried out by YouGov Ltd.Peter Kellner, Chairman of YouGov says of the results: “This poll contains good news and bad news for local government. The good news is that local councils are more widely trusted than national government to spend public money wisely. The bad news is that there is still much work to be done in order to build trust and confidence. This scepticism needs to be addressed if the public is to reconnect with the political process.”