I am not a good project manager.  There, I said it!  Even 5 years in IBM could not drill the organised thought processes required to manage a big project into me.  I'm just not wired for that.  That being said however, I don't believe that all projects (I won't go so far to say no projects) lend themselves to being managed with structured, deterministic so-called "Waterfall" methodologies that are so popular in most IT companies.  Agile methodologies like SCRUM are much better at catering for the inherent complexities one encounters in a project environment.

In a recent blog entry, Matthew E. May writes about the "7 laws of project management and how to break them", it really is worth a read.  Among other things he writes:

We're busy with:

- conducting a pilot of narrative & complexity-based approaches to mine safety culture in a global mining group*

- developing an impact measurement framework and narrative database for an education foundation's bursary scheme

- conducting a narrative inquiry into the way in which communities initiate and engage in water resource management in South Africa

To date we've:

- developed a Culture Change Story for an automotive finance house

- used narrative and complexity methods to assist a parastatal develop a contextualy relevant performance management system for their scientists.

- developed a Change Story for a Turnaround Strategy in a government department

- developed a Metaphor for Change as a precursor to a Change Story for a local government department

- written the Corporate Story of Us of an empowerment business development organisation

- captured & made sense of hundreds of safety stories for a multinational resources company

- performed a narrative culture audit for the Supply Chain of a local gold mining organisation

- facilitated an Enneagram personality profiling process for an NGO

- assisted a prominent FMCG company define and develop adaptive roles and responsibilities

- developed narrative interview techniques for a prominent investment bank

- performed a knowledge culture audit for a department of one of SAs leading cellular telecommunications providers

- used narrative research to redefine the Alumni Association of a large mining house.

- worked with a consulting house in assessing the pulse of the mine safety industry in South Africa (and of course, using narrative to do so).

- using narrative and complexity methods as a strategy development framework for managing water resources in a multinational resource company.

- providing in-house training on narrative techniques for a large investment bank.

* These projects are using SenseMaker.