The Leadership Beacon, Vol. 1, Issue 2
In This Edition:
- Sharpening the Leadership Saw: Bringing Clarity to Project Uncertainty
- Project Leadership Flashback: The Panama Canal – A 100 Year Perspective
- Project Leadership Community: Annual Membership Now Available (Know the Benefits)
- Upcoming Events
- Link to Last Month’s Web’n Learn: Into Thin Air – Communicating the Value of Project Management
Sharpening the Leadership Saw: Bringing Clarity to Project Uncertainty
Recent winter weather events in a great part of the United States wreaked havoc on the business travel sector. Many of the people stranded at airports around the country were traveling for business and it’s a safe bet that many of the “strandees” are key project team members who were unable to reach their respective project destinations. The resulting cancellations and re-routing, in turn, had a cascading effect on many organizational projects in the form of schedule delays, resource constraints, and cost increases. Yet as project management practitioners, could those travelers have done anything to avoid the impact of these weather events that were not in their direct control? The simple answer is no; however, project teams could have taken proactive measures to minimize exposure or lessen the impact of these issues through employing project risk management processes.
The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (5th Edition) defines a project risk as “an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives such as scope, schedule, cost, or quality.” In our business travel scenario, adverse weather conditions obviously represent a negative risk to the project. However, does the phrase “adverse weather conditions” truly describe the relative uncertainty to the project? In other words, “adverse weather conditions” represent potential risks on most projects and the relative impact of the risk could vary based on the extremity of the condition.
Do “adverse weather conditions” refer to rain showers? An ice storm? A blizzard? A category 4 hurricane? An F5 tornado? When assessing the risk “adverse weather conditions”, it is imperative for the project team to clearly articulate not only the definition of the risk, but also its effect on the project. To do this, I incorporate a fairly simple rule in project risk management: Craft a Risk Statement. A risk statement helps bring clarity to project uncertainty. There are three key elements to the risk statement: condition (the risk itself), consequence (impact of the risk), and the quantifiable measurements (impact in terms of time, costs, or resources). The template essentially forms an “if/then” statement: “If (condition) occurs, then (consequence) could happen, which will result in (quantifiable measurements).”
Putting our “adverse weather conditions” into the form of a risk statement could result as follows:
“If a significant winter weather event occurs during week six of the project, air travel could be suspended stranding key team members, thus resulting in one week of project delays.”
In this instance, we get a clearer definition of the adverse weather condition while gaining clarity of the resulting impact of the risk. This process will allow the team members to not only better communicate the overall importance of the risk, it also facilitates the formulation of more effective risk response strategies.
Creating a risk statement is an essential part of the identify risk process and can help any project team bring more clarity to project uncertainty. To learn more about this technique and how to better apply it, join us for our next Web’n Learn, The Risk Statement: Bringing Clarity to Project Uncertainty, on February 28, 2014. To register for this 1.5 PDU offering, click here.
Next Month’s Sharpening the Leadership Saw Topic: Project Issue Management
Project Leadership Flashback: The Panama Canal – Putting Things in Perspective
2014 marks the 100th anniversary of arguably the most successful engineering project of the 20th century, The Panama Canal. Before the project was completed in 1914, shipping routes from New York City to San Francisco would take months. The canal reduced shipping time from the U.S. Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast drastically, thus allowing goods and people to reach their destination in a relative fraction of the time. David McCullough, author of “The Path Between the Seas”, wrote: “The creation of a water passage across Panama was one of the supreme human achievements of all time, the culmination of a heroic dream of over four hundred years and of more than twenty years of phenomenal effort and sacrifice. The fifty miles between the oceans were among the hardest ever won by human effort and ingenuity, and no statistics on tonnage or tolls can begin to convey the grandeur of what was accomplished. Primarily the canal is an expression of that old and noble desire to bridge the divide, to bring people together. It is a work of civilization.”
The Panama Canal project was completed months ahead of schedule and under budget by more than $23 million ($52 million in today’s dollars). To give you further perspective, let’s contrast the Panama Canal project to the “Big Dig” in Boston – the nation’s costliest highway project:
- Panama Canal Costs (2013 Dollars): $8.74 Billion
- Big Dig Costs (to date): $24.8 Billion
Project Leadership learning assignment: do some research on The Panama Canal and Big Dig projects to learn:
- How can a project that has had a much broader positive impact on the world cost one-third the amount of a modern-day endeavor with a much smaller scope?
- Even with having access to greater technology and best practices, why is the Big Dig considered an epic project failure?
Happy 100th, Panama Canal!
Project Leadership Community: Annual PLS Membership Now Available
Want to learn and earn (PDUs) at the same time? Become a member of the Project Leadership Series (PLS)community. Our two subscription levels are:
Project Expeditor
Our basic offering, the Project Expeditor entitles you to our Leadership Beacon monthly newsletter, updates on Project Leadership SeriesSM training offerings, and delivery of our regular Project Leadership “Tips’n Tricks” of the trade. PRICE: FREE
Project Leader
Our premier annual membership offering, Project Leaders are entitled to not only up to 20 FREE Professional Development Units (PDUs) through our coveted “Web’n Learn” series, they also receive 10% discounts on all training courses and seminars offered through our flagship website, www.projectleadershipseries.com. These bargain benefits are in addition to those available to the basic Project Expeditor membership. PRICE: $199.00/year
To learn more or become a PLS member, click here to check it out!
Upcoming Project Leadership SeriesSM Events
We kicked-off 2014 with our first Web’n Learn, “Into Thin Air: Communicating the Value of Project Management Up the Chain of Command” (click here to check out that webinar and earn 1.5 FREE PDUs). In the coming months, we have some other exciting learning offerings. These programs are available to everyone in the project management community. Our current open enrollment offerings include:
Virtual Programs (Web’N Learns)
The Risk Statement: Bringing Clarity to Project Uncertainty
(1.5 PDUs): 28 February 2014
- Project Issue Management: Defining the Problem or Opportunity (1.5 PDUs): 21 March 2014
Open Enrollment
- Project Management Essentials & PMP® Certification Exam Preparation (35 PDUs): Guilford Technical Community College; 24 March 2014
- Project Management Essentials & PMP® Certification Exam Preparation (35 PDUs): Guilford Technical Community College; 5 May 2014
To learn more about these upcoming events and to register, go to www.projectleadershipseries.com.
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