Who are those excellent visionary Project Managers who anticipated that there would be a fatal medical virus named COVID (I MUST be sure that it is not understood as a computer virus)?
Prolay ChaudhuryPractice Lead & Lead Solution Architect| Chaudhury, Inc.Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Who are those excellent visionary Project Managers who anticipated that there would be a fatal medical virus named COVID (I MUST be sure that it is not understood as a computer virus) that will eat up humanity? Not only that, they already had the risk mitigation plans in their Project Management arsenal!!!
For the last two years, I wonder if there must be some project managers scattered around the world who envisioned that the COVID would soon be destroying the economy. They created the risk mitigation plans for their respective projects!! Saving Changes...
And WHO and other country-based organizations had scenarios and plans in the drawer.
Just because one generation of humans has not experienced a disaster it is not that it does not repeat in history. Human society memory can be shorter than 50 years. Or we see rites and stories embedded in the culture (like the big flood of 1362 which still drives coastal protection in Germany, even the tsunami in Fukushima happened 100 years before).
So, project management is best applicable to repeatable situations, as is risk management. If we move pandemics to a place where we are aware of them, both managements are perfect tools to handle them.
Thomas
The question posed by a extreme right politician including her biased assumptions is evidence for you?
As I said, WHO and others, as well as many scientists, anticipated such a pandemic and prepared plans to tackle it, many governments underfunded or even neglected the plans (like the US). The films are mostly based on scenarios like these. Saving Changes...
I'd agree with Thomas that a pandemic is a known-unknown and there have been pandemics in the past which had similar but less severe outcomes so I'd suggest this was a case of prioritizing the realization of the risk lower than other more "pressing" matters. This is no different than what happens on many projects where risk owners fail to take a risk seriously.
Perhaps Nassim Taleb could do a follow-up to Anti-Fragile to highlight companies (and countries) where a focus on maintaining optionality provided them with good outcomes in spite of the pandemic.
I'm curious to understand who is bragging about project management, and what exactly they are bragging about. I also feel compelled to point out that risk management is a separate discipline from project management. We may apply risk management principles to our projects, but risk management stands on its own.
If there was a breakdown, it was caused by decisions made without enough information - information that was not available.
Consider two of the core assessments of risk analysis - how probable is an event to happen, and what is the impact of the event. These two assessments are used to derive risk exposure, which is then used to prioritize risks and determine which risks to use limited resources to address. In the case of Covid, there was not enough information available to determine either the probability or impact. And you may be making assumptions about the WHO's ability to prevent pandemics or keep the world safe.
At the government level, there are likely some governments that had enough information to understand the risk exposure and plan appropriately, but they kept the information to themselves, and it's likely that only a small number of people in these governments knew anything.
At the corporate level, big businesses generally have plans to deal with supply chain disruptions, but again, they did not have enough information to properly assess risk exposure.
At the project level, not all projects have been directly affected, and there are likely many initiatives that exist as a result of the pandemic. We may refer to waterfall as predictive, but ALL project management is reactive.
At its core, project management is a discipline focused on delivering a product or service. When used in project management, risk management is an add-on to help identify potential obstacles to delivery and determine whether, or not, and how to address the obstacles. Ultimately, people make decisions and attempt to find some sort of balance between risk prevention and actually delivering something.
Covid-19 was an unknown. Lack of information has proven to be one of the biggest risks to ALL projects. But, how do you account for what you cannot know?
If you try to account for all of the possible unknowns, you will never deliver your product or service because you will never have enough information to account for all of the unknowns. If you want to place blame, find the people who caused it, not the people who are reacting to a situation that they couldn't have fully prepared for. If you are right that there has been nothing like Covid-19, before, then there really is no way to be fully prepared for it.
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1 reply by Peter Rapin
Sep 08, 2021 8:14 PM
Peter Rapin
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You Just to be clear project management is a risk mitigating measure. You manage so as to improve probability of effective delivery
Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
Sep 08, 2021 10:57 AM
Replying to Aaron Porter
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I'm curious to understand who is bragging about project management, and what exactly they are bragging about. I also feel compelled to point out that risk management is a separate discipline from project management. We may apply risk management principles to our projects, but risk management stands on its own.
If there was a breakdown, it was caused by decisions made without enough information - information that was not available.
Consider two of the core assessments of risk analysis - how probable is an event to happen, and what is the impact of the event. These two assessments are used to derive risk exposure, which is then used to prioritize risks and determine which risks to use limited resources to address. In the case of Covid, there was not enough information available to determine either the probability or impact. And you may be making assumptions about the WHO's ability to prevent pandemics or keep the world safe.
At the government level, there are likely some governments that had enough information to understand the risk exposure and plan appropriately, but they kept the information to themselves, and it's likely that only a small number of people in these governments knew anything.
At the corporate level, big businesses generally have plans to deal with supply chain disruptions, but again, they did not have enough information to properly assess risk exposure.
At the project level, not all projects have been directly affected, and there are likely many initiatives that exist as a result of the pandemic. We may refer to waterfall as predictive, but ALL project management is reactive.
At its core, project management is a discipline focused on delivering a product or service. When used in project management, risk management is an add-on to help identify potential obstacles to delivery and determine whether, or not, and how to address the obstacles. Ultimately, people make decisions and attempt to find some sort of balance between risk prevention and actually delivering something.
Covid-19 was an unknown. Lack of information has proven to be one of the biggest risks to ALL projects. But, how do you account for what you cannot know?
If you try to account for all of the possible unknowns, you will never deliver your product or service because you will never have enough information to account for all of the unknowns. If you want to place blame, find the people who caused it, not the people who are reacting to a situation that they couldn't have fully prepared for. If you are right that there has been nothing like Covid-19, before, then there really is no way to be fully prepared for it.
You Just to be clear project management is a risk mitigating measure. You manage so as to improve probability of effective delivery Saving Changes...
George FreemanThought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States
Sep 06, 2021 12:58 PM
Replying to Prolay Chaudhury
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Please tell the same to the world leaders. "cry as a woman what you did not know how to defend as a man". I do not fall into this category.
I simply put it as that Project Management theory is totally failed to deal with the COVID-19 like uncertainty.
Prolay,
I would agree with you that “Project Management theory has totally failed to deal with COVID-19...,” if there was a project management organization/structure in-place and in-charge of pandemic outbreaks and mitigation at global and national levels and, they failed to meet their objectives.
My nonsensical statement is purposed to point out that I’m confused with why you are placing COVID-19 accountability at the foot of “project management” when there is no correlative relationship.
It may be helpful for you to explain your dismay with project management minus the metaphor of COVID-19. Saving Changes...
George FreemanThought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States
Sep 05, 2021 1:17 AM
Replying to Prolay Chaudhury
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Peter, I am sorry to say that Project Risk Management becomes a joke in this volatile and uncertain world situation. So people who are bragging about their PMP certifications also becoming jokers!!!
The world hasn't seen such a Pandemic. And this is the beginning only!!!
Prolay,
An individual “should be” proud when they obtain a PMP certification – period. At the same time, having credentials in a given field does not necessarily make you an expert in that field. In like manner, an expert in a given field may not hold any certifications at all.
To say that an individual “becomes a joker” because they brag about their accomplishment (e.g., a PMP certification) because of the purported relationship you have drawn between “project risk management” and a “volatile and uncertain world,” is an unreasonable statement, even when made in hyperbole.
If you have a concern with a principle associated with project management, then you should raise that question and simply drop the unnecessary interpersonal commentary. Saving Changes...
With all due respect, Thomas, we have to conclude that whatever stories all the movie industries are visualizing or narrating are actually going to happen in real life?
So we conclude that we have to take the movie industry, not as entertainment. Instead, we have to take them seriously, and the narrated stories are just warnings of what will happen in the future?
Strange???
WHO has totally failed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Here is the article I would love to bring to your kind notice.
My intentions to start this conversation were to make sure that the Project Risk Management must consider all the outliers scenarios outlined by Keith Nova.
I would argue that the premise that PM failed in general is predicated on the faulty premise that PM is intended to mitigate all conceivable risks. Projects have a defined scope. The risk tolerance of the stakeholders often deem global pandemics, coup d'é·tats, and other such risks outside the approved scope of individual project teams, and even many major government organizations.
PMs and organizations in general depend on division of labor, as have societies for thousands of years. Every individual does not address every need of the larger group. Small organizations may defer responsibility for major catastrophes to specially chartered organizations. International agencies may provide recommendations, but do not have governing authority over all global stakeholders.
On national and global scales, major stakeholders have different opinions on the appropriate response. Some countries opted to allow COVID to run its course without intervention, while others took extraordinary measures. In many countries there is still significant disagreement on how much intervention is appropriate.
PM is not intended to bring all nations and factions into agreement, ensure world peace, or bring planets into alignment. It plays many parts in larger initiatives, but we are not intended to possess supernatural powers and universal authority. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
Prolay; going back to your initial post, second paragraph. I checked a couple Risk Registers I worked on in the last couple years and noted that each has a line item identifying both Known Unknown and Unknown Unknown risk (they were not noted specifically as COVID 19), mitigation measures included Risk Register review on a regular basis to indentify “new” risks as well as assigning a Team member responsible for maintaining the Register. After discussions with the client we incorporated an allowance based on a percentage of estimated project costs. The templates I use in developing project risk registers also includes these two categories. Any project risk management I get involved with includes a discussion of unknown risk events although we don’t always attach an allowance as our estimated exposure may be minimal.
I would expect that when COVID 19 became an issue that project risk managers quickly determined possible impacts on their projects, developed and implemented mitigation measures and advised their clients.
I maintain that COVID 19 did not highlight the ineffectiveness of risk management as you have suggested but quite the opposite - risk management was/is used to mitigate the effects of COVID 19 Saving Changes...
Ganesh KumarProgram ManagerBangalore., Karnataka, India
As Kiran rightly said an interesting philosophical argument, just taking it further more.....
The recent Afghanistan taken over by Taliban. If we were do risk assessment of these incident, how will it be ? Now that is a known risk, how will it be treated ? Anyone thinking about it ?
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1 reply by Peter Rapin
Sep 13, 2021 11:14 AM
Peter Rapin
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It is not now a 'known risk', it is now an issue. However that being said now that it has occurred it raises new risk which need to be identified and analysed. Couple things to keep in mind here if we are discussing PROJECT risks. 1) does it impact on the specific project? and 2) do we, can we, have control over the probability of occurrence or the impact?
A project manager delivering a project within Afghanistan has his hands full trying to determine what may happen next, how it impacts his project and what he can do about it.
A project delivered in Western Canada will most likely have minimal probability of an impact. The only consideration in the risk management plan is: "Can this event, or any aftershocks, affect project delivery? - negligible, next."
Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
For argument sake, let's say I recognised COVID 19 as a risk years before it happened.Let's further say that I attached a probability of occurrence at 20% (medium) and the impact on my project at 50% (high). I then developed general mitigating measures like procurement and HR processes to minimise the impact. (I did not actually write COVID 19, I noted 'unknown risk').
It so happened that this particular risk event actually occurred (100%) and became an issue and the impact on my project was very high.
Does this mean that risk management is ineffective and that I failed in my assessment of risk and that, because I failed, it should never be done again? That it is always ineffective and I will always fail? That risk management is a 'joke' and that I am a 'joker' for even attempting to identify and mitigate risk?
What really happens when a risk event occurs and becomes an issue, we are required to assess the new risks that may follow because of that occurrence and develop revised or new mitigating measures as may be appropriate.
Project risk management, like any management function, is not a 'one-shot' deal (right or wrong) it is an ongoing process. Not only is it planning ahead but also reacting to events and issues. Saving Changes...
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