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Outlook for Crisis Project Management 2010 (Part 2)
Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.
To appreciate the impact of crisis project management, it’s important to understand how the discipline started. Waffles Natusch--president of Warwick, R.I. career-management firm the Barrett Group--says that while it’s hard to precisely pinpoint the origin of crisis management, Johnson & Johnson can be credited with creating the demand for crisis managers.
In 1982, the giant pharmaceutical firm put crisis management on the map when several people died from ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. “The company’s response became the template and benchmark for many kinds of crisis project management,” Natusch explains.
In the fall of 1982, seven people on Chicago’s West Side died mysteriously. After a thorough investigation, authorities concluded that all of the people died from ingesting an Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule laced with cyanide. Tylenol was made by J&J subsidiary McNeil Consumer Products.
Predictably, news of the incident became a front-page story in newspapers throughout the world. It also triggered a massive, nationwide panic. Many marketing and advertising experts said that the tragic event marked the end of the Tylenol brand. They said nobody in their right mind would buy a product that could potentially kill them.
Jerry Della Femina, a well-known and successful New York advertising executive who was responsible …
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