During the last couple of months, we have seen a number of major corporations who have surprisingly mishandled the management of unforeseen crises surrounding their companies. The most notable ended with Tony Hayward’s , BP’s former CEO, recent resignation for his mishandling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This mismanagement alone provided over 2 months of “work” (which seemed like around the clock coverage) for CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Then there were the recent product recalls from Toyota that were not addressed quickly enough. And of course we can’t forget the most recent iPhone G4 problems with its problematic antenna. Although Steve Jobs probably could have planned his crisis better, research shows that sales of the new iPhone are still going strong. In this age of instant information with Google, Facebook and Twitter, planning for the unplanned is critical today more than ever. With a blink of an eye, bad publicity will run rampant. In light of this reality, I believe this is an excellent area the project management world can lend a helping hand.
A good project management strategy demands risk is incorporated into its project plans. Project managers understand that projects are unpredictable. As the leaders of many projects, project management practitioners understand that a faulty or mishandled response to their stakeholders during a project crisis can ultimately lead to the demise of the project and in some extreme cases their jobs (as what happened to Mr. Hayward). As a first step, formalizing a risk management strategy begins with making it a core feature to your plan and developing a strategy to monitor risk and prepare a detailed mitigation plan of action. More importantly, your risk management strategy has to be in line with the stakeholders you serve. It is clear that as instant information is readily available, accessible and expected, your risk management strategy has to follow suit.
Tags: PM Fundamentals, Project Planning, Successful Project Management
Totally agree, Risk management must always be part of project planning, where risk can’t be avoided, it is very important to have a back-up plan encase failure gets in..