Our Consulting Focus

Magpie provides technical and management consultancy, focussing on developing strategies and plans that help both projects and "business as usual" activities to succeed. We use a combination of tailored, standards-based systems engineering philosophy and process, coupled with established project management methodology to perform our work. We understand and act on the fundamental research and observation that projects and other activities fail ^[1] despite seemingly competent management.

Common causes of failure (particularly project failure) include ^[2]:

• poor relationships between stakeholders, clients and contractors;
• poor understanding of stakeholder expectations and requirements;
• an inability to handle uncertainty and change;
• poorly written stakeholder capability requirements;
• inappropriate technical and management strategies; and
• inappropriate commercial arrangements.

We like to get involved from the earliest stages of projects because, according to research ^[3], this is when opportunities exists to set projects up for success. We know that rectifying problems tends to become increasingly expensive and time consuming (if not impossible) if it is left too late in the project lifecycle.

_{Notes:
[1] Failure includes project scope/cost/schedule problems, or departure from stakeholder expectations.
[2] Based on a combination of empirical research and research conducted by the Standish Group.
[3] Based on research conducted by Barry Boehm.}