I'm doing a bit of research on Enterprise Risk Management and would like to hear your experiences with so-called "black swans" and how such events impacted your project and how you reacted and the ensuing outcome. Saving Changes...
Management reserves are usually the only option in organizations which are not anti-fragile. Saving Changes...
Deepesh RammoorthyICT Project Manager ( PMP®AgilePM®Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®))| Australian Red Cross Blood ServiceTarneit, Vic, Australia
The effects of such a "Black Swan" on our project were:-
Extension of the end date of our project
Delaying handover to operations
Not happy Management .
But there were events beyond our control and there were valuable lessons learnt and There were a few fundamental issues revealed because of which these events happened. Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
The whole point of Risk Management and to some extent of Agile is to prepare for the unexpected. Risk Management should focus on forecast (what could) and be ready to mitigate or take advantage. Black swan is a pretty old concept. I can't see any modern project where most of risks are identified upfront. The Iron triangle is a good tool to identify which project component (scope, time, money) must be flexible to allow risk mitigation. One easy way is adopting Agile and doing as much as possible in a given time and within the budget allocated. As easy as it sounds is the hardest approach because it needs (a lot of) trust between the payer and the delivery team. Saving Changes...
I had a major customer who found a contract error where there were 2 different delivery dates, and they of course insisted on the incorrect earlier date which was completely infeasible. What ensued over the next few months was a combination of using every scheduling trick in the book to try and shorten the critical path, and managing customer expectations.
I had to be very honest with the customer about the fundamental schedule limitations without giving them the detail level plan where they could try and micromanage us. I had to be very visible that we were working very hard to find ways to compress the schedule, and that we were actually finding improvements but their dream date was still not feasible. I was also very clear that I would only make schedule commitments I could keep and try to improve on them, but not commit to a date with no plan.
We delivered the product with a lot more overtime than planned, later than wanted but earlier than originally (correctly) scheduled. Nobody was extremely pleased with the outcome, and the customer was really trying to exploit an error.
From a PM learning experience, it showed me that it is very difficult for a customer to be angry at you as a person, when you didn't cause a problem, are doing everything in your power very professionally to fix it, and are finding solutions. Saving Changes...
Anton OosthuizenSenior Business Analyst / Project Manager| Self EmployedPretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Black Swan would result in catastrophic failure, something rarely seen on a project (I've never experienced it). In my view, the only result would be a terminated project so the only action would be to pack up. But I've encountered what I would call mini black swans frequently. It lacks the catastrophic component but ignores existing evidence. This has always been as a result of lessons learned not being implemented, usually ignored because they are deemed to be too costly to implement so we'd rather spent x2 effort fixing it AGAIN later than to do it right in the first place. There is not much you can do really except wash, rinse, repeat. Saving Changes...
