Is it “crisis management”?
I was following reports in the media about a new construction submarine computerization.
There were various companies involved.
I read that ASC wrote a letter to Rockwell in 1993, telling Rockwell it was running late.
So ASC was doing some sort of “crisis management” as it saw it. But wouldn’t that be a good way to sink the project ?
(Up till then Rockwell was sparing no effort to ensure absolute success. ASC effectively steps up and acts as a crisis manager.)
I read that a “Reliability Improvement Plan”, that Don Cabral of Rockwell had devised, was wound back or shelved. On whose orders would that have been ?
Was that a direct result of the ASC letter ?
Is “project management” sometimes a euphemism for “crisis management”, and very poor quality crisis mangement, at that ?
Dare one ask who put ASC up to writing the letter ?
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“project management” is about planning and control.
Planning – make plan for the project – resources, time.
Control – ensure the plan are follow properly so the project can complete in time.
“crisis management” is part of Control. It is like fire fighting.
Things that happen that are not in the plan that need to be solved so that the plan can proceed smoothly.
A business has two modes. Ongoing business and changing the business. Changing the business is the multitude of things that need to happen to adapt, improve, move with the market and generally make the ongoing business more efficient. That is where projects come in. They start, they produce something and they stop. People are assigned to them, and reassigned at the end.
The problem is that people in business mode is that they are used to a high degree of predictability. They know that tomorrow is going to be pretty much like today. They expect the other mode should operate in the same way. Unfortunately it doesn’t. Projects need to be planned at the start, and while that is happening not much is visible. Pressure mounts with people saying ‘When are we going to see something?”
Even with the best of planning, not everything is foreseeable on day one. Tomorrow is never like today. You need to adopt a different mindset. Sometimes it does go all pear shaped and often that is because of the pressure to ‘do’ rather than ‘plan’.
That is where crisis management comes in.
No matter how good a project manager is, they will have to manage a crisis from time to time. The good ones will overcome the crisis. In fact the good ones often get called in to fix a crisis caused by someone else. There can be such a thing as excellent Crisis Management.
http://www.projectperfect.com.au