I hear so often from our clients that they have too many project managers or too often project managers don’t understand the dynamics of putting together a solution that is cohesive and then owning the leadership task of driving that work forward. If the business driver is truly a business driver, they have a day job that typically involves other aspects beyond the project scope. So then whose job is it to understand the project work, drive it, and integrate it into a cohesive solution?

When I ran a PMO for that same software company my instructions for my PM’s was simple: “you are wholly responsible for delivering the client’s solution within the triple constrain. ANYTHING you need to do to accomplish that you have my explicit support.” The invite that goes out is clear. Don’t bring meat. We’ll provide the beer. Just come armed with nothing but the funniest jokes you’ve ever heard. Shane will take care of the rest. It’ll be a night of great friends telling the world’s funniest jokes.The guest of honour is Jacobson's father, Ron, who his son is saluting because he's so frequently brightened his own life with laughter. The resulting film is almost entirely comprised of the rendition of their jokes, unaccompanied by visualisations or aesthetic embellishments. By “almost entirely” I do not mean lots of jokes are interspersed throughout the inevitable dialogue, character motivation and plot. I mean there is, with the exception of two very short scenes – maybe three minutes of running time – no dialogue, character motivation and plot. Nothing but jokes. Jokes, jokes and jokes. The PMI has traditionally been vague on this point preferring to delegate the driving of the work and the understanding of the details of the work being driven up to the business owner or driver and the subject matter experts respectively. This school of thought provides a foundation to the theory that a good PM should be industry agnostic and able to successfully deliver a project regardless of industry specific information. Balderdash!!! On 31 March 2018, the film was added to the library of streaming service Stan, despite still screening in some cinemas. [4] The film was released on DVD on 9 May 2018, and includes a behind the scenes feature. As healthcare organizations struggle with the crushing weight of ACA and CMS induced regulations designed to re-craft the healthcare economy, healthcare payers must be able to deliver projects effectively and avoid the “built as designed, not as desired” conundrum of having disconnected project teams where leadership integration with the solution is too fractured to recognize when the project has departed from the organizations’ desired goals.

Christie Whelan Browne, Ron Jacobson, Shane Jacobson and Michala Banas in a still from the Australian comedy film That’s Not My Dog! Photograph: Lachlan Moore/Transmission Films That’s Not My Dog!’s marketing materials inform us that “The greatest jokes ever told ... get told.” Rest assured these are not the greatest jokes ever told. Unless “greatest” includes puns such as “you have to hand it to blind prostitutes” and “why can’t Stevie Wonder see his friends? Because he’s married.” There are longer, rantier ones, including one I quite liked but which sounds lame as soon as you write it down – an anecdote about a murderous boy who lives in a world populated by inflatable people, and “lets everybody down”. Too many times this gag comes to mind when I am dealing with PM’s of a certain sort. If you’ve been on enough projects you’ve run into them as well. They are the PM who pulls in data, runs reports, maintains the project plans, but feels it is up to someone else to drive the project work effort and understand the details of the delivered solution. Otherwise, there's plenty here to offend. Animal lovers will blanch at the one about the man arrested for barbecuing a penguin. When asked how it tasted, he answers, "halfway between a dolphin and a koala". And the film's gross-out factor is certainly robust enough to outrage the #MeToo movement.The film centres on Shane Jacobson who is throwing a party for his father. Invited are the funniest people Shane knows—Australia's biggest stars along with several Australian music legends playing their biggest hits live, right throughout the party. Featuring little to no developing plot or storyline, the film is instead set on the premise that each invited guest needs to bring nothing except their favourite joke, which each proceeds to tell throughout the night.

That's Not My Dog! is a 2018 Australian comedy film written and directed by Dean Murphy and starring Shane Jacobson. [1] Each of the cast members in the film are portraying themselves. The film had a limited cinematic release from 15–18 March 2018, [2] which was extended due to popular demand from audiences. [3] There are plenty of humorists aspiring to this standard in That's Not My Dog!, a foolhardy venture totally devoted to the art of the joke. Shane Jacobson has invited a large group of those he regards as his funniest friends to a night-time barbecue. The result is a roll call of performers familiar from TV sketch comedies and sitcoms, old and current. Rugged up in scarves, hoodies and anoraks, they huddle around the fire, listening to the bands whose music provides punctuation between the punchlines and striving to warm up the wintry air with gales of laughter in the hope that we, the audience, will be moved to join in. Paul Hogan does best with the surprise bit, embarking on a shaggy dog story then abruptly veering off to cut to the chase with a one-line finish. Think of the celebrated movie moment when Indiana Jones disarms a sabre-twirling giant with a single pistol shot. The technique is similar but the pay off, sadly, falls a long way short of that cathartic thud as the giant hits the ground. I recall a particularly large program I was once on as the Program Director for a vendor that was supporting a ¾ Billion-dollar software implementation for our client. So often in a room full of PM’s and business drivers no decision could be made because there was nobody providing the integration of knowledge and leadership to push things forward. More importantly nobody knew whose accountability it was to make the decision. In many cases our team was lauded by the client simply because we did that – we spoke up and created directional momentum. Either at the PM level or at my level.