WHO Teaches the Course?

The Sunday Business Post has described Fergus O’Connell www.fergusoconnell.com as having ‘more strings to his bow than a Stradivarius’.

His 2002 novel, Call The Swallow, was described by The Irish Times as ‘better than Schindler’s Ark’ [itself a Booker Prize winner].  Call The Swallow was short listed for the 2002 Kerry Ingredients Irish Fiction Prize and nominated for the Hughes & Hughes / Sunday Independent Novel of the Year.

Fergus has recently completed a screenplay based on his latest book, The Paradise Ghetto, his second about the Holocaust, which is now in development.  He’s also written a quartet of period love stories called The Four Lights – Starlight, Sunlight, Moonlight and Candlelight (Thames River Press).  He is currently working on a screenplay set during America’s Prohibition years.

Fergus has a First in Mathematical Physics from University College Cork and is one of the world’s leading authorities on project management.  His first project management company – ETP (www.etpint.com) – was founded in 1992 and has just celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary.  Fergus’ disruptive, common sense project management method – The Ten Steps – has influenced a generation of project managers.  In 2003 this method was used to plan and execute the Special Olympics World Games, the world’s biggest sporting event that year.

Fergus’ new company, Fast Projects (www.fastprojects.org) is again disrupting the project management space by focusing on shortening projects / shortening time to market – the only company in the world to be doing so.

Fergus’ experience covers projects around the world – in Europe, North America, South America and Asia.  He has written on project management for many publications including The Wall Street Journal.  He has lectured at University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin Institute of Technology, Bentley College, Boston University, the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business, the Irish Management Institute and on television for the National Technological University. He holds two patents.

Fergus is the author of sixteen business and self-help books http://www.amazon.com/Fergus-OConnell/e/B000APF0KK/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1, including a book on project management for children entitled, How To Put A Man On The Moon If You’re A Kid.  His book, How to Run Successful Projects – the Silver Bullet, has become both a bestseller and a classic and has been constantly in print for over twenty years.  His book on common sense entitled Simply Brilliant – also a bestseller and now in its fourth edition – was runner-up in the W H Smith Book Awards 2002.  His books have been translated into twenty-six languages.

He has two children and is currently implementing the New Year New Country New Novel plan.  Having lived in France and for the last year just outside Florence in Italy he now lives in rural Cheshire in England.