Provocative Talk #1 Michael Lissack October, 2005

Provocative Talk #1

Michael LissackOctober, 2005

Context:

All of Life is Not a Project

or How Business School thinking led to the Katrina Disaster in the US

Michael LissackOctober, 2005

Other Subtitles:

• What the US never learned from the river floods in Central Europe

• A complexity view of project management

• Fix your thinking before its too late

Context:

Business School Thinking:– Net Present Value– Consideration of

Tradeoffs– Creation and

Exploitation of Externalities– Use of Project

Management

Our main question:

Project Management has become a real buzzword in the modern corporate world.

It suggests cost efficiency, optimal solutions and immediate results.

Is it really such a panacea? When and why or why not?

Our Agenda:

1. Describe Katrina Situation

2. Compare New Orleans to Rhine/Danube

3. The Prelude

4. The Event

Agenda (2)

5. The immediate aftermath

6. Rita contrast

7. Lessons that could have been learned, but were not

8. General lessons

Katrina

Category 5 Hurricane

Near Direct Hit on New Orleans

Katrina

First forecast on August 24.

By August 26 the possibility of "unprecedented cataclysm" was already being considered. Some computer models were putting New Orleans right in the center of their track probabilities, and the chances of a direct hit were forecast at nearly 90%. The Governor of Louisiana declared a state of emergency for state agencies. On August 27, after Katrina crossed southern Florida and strengthened to Category 3, President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi two days before the hurricane made landfall. On August 28 the National Weather Service issued a bulletin predicting "devastating" damage rivaling the intensity of Hurricane Camille. New Orleans Mayor Nagin ordered an unprecedented mandatory evacuation of the city.

Unfortunately, the ordered mandatory evacuation was too late and just an order.

Katrina

Katrina

Katrina

New Orleans compared to Rhine/Danube/Central Europe

New Orleans compared to Rhine/Danube/Central EuropeRiver flooding is usually

predicted days in advanceRiver basin has a well

documented emergency planRiver basin residents have

lived through many variants of the Rhine/Danube floods

New Orleans compared to Rhine/Danube/Central EuropeStorm Surge was predicted

days in advanceNew Orleans had a well

documented emergency planNew Orleans had practiced this

very scenario in 2002 right after the Danube floods

New Orleans compared to Rhine/Danube/Central EuropeDifferences:• Mindset of residents • Lines of Authority • Mandatory evacuation order • Pre-disaster equipment preparation• Cooperation of mass media• Willingness of authorities to implement

plans and orders

New Orleans compared to Rhine/Danube/Central EuropePetőfi Sándor: A Tisza - részlet-

Mint az őrült, ki letépte láncát,Vágtatott a Tisza a rónán át,Zúgva, bőgve törte át a gátot,El akarta nyelni a világot!



Picture could be from either place

The Prelude

• Fragmentation• Externalities• Averages versus Long Tails• Words versus Actions• Abstractions versus Embodiment• Lack of reading• Project mentality

Fragmentation

• Authority is massively distributed amongst a variety of agencies

• No central body to declare a “disaster”

• No central repository of supplies or equipment

• Every man for himself

Externalities

• Can costs be imposed on another person, company, or level of government?

• Can boundaries be drawn so that costs go away from my little corner of the world?

• Can flood prevention be treated as a deferred maintenance item to pay for other goods and services?

Externalities

Businesses learn to exploit externalities

Averages versus Long Tails• We learn that statistics “tell”

us that we need only to plan for events within 3 standard deviations

• We do not learn (though we are often told) that these statistics only apply to “independent” items with no correlations

Averages versus Long Tails

Averages versus Long TailsThese “independent” items

however sometimes get correlated in “networks”

Within networks the degree of the autocorrelation present is an example of what is known as a “power law” distribution

Power laws have infinitely long tails


Long Tails Matter

Averages versus Long TailsWhen you combine averages

thinking with net present value


The result is often: deferred maintenance

Averages versus Long TailsWhich makes the accountants

happy – but at what cost?

Words versus Actions

Evacuation was discussed but not put into effect

Shelters were “designated” but not supplied nor staffed

The existence of plans was always mentioned, but the plans themselves were not followed

Words versus Actions

• “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

• “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

• —Lewis Carroll

Abstractions versus Embodiment

• Evacuate• Shelter• Plan• Supply• Fortify• Protect• Warn

Lack of reading

• The history of planning and prediction of the “big one” in New Orleans was decades old

• The Mayor and the Governor had never read the emergency plan before August 24

• The media was never copied on the plans or appraised of their contents

Project mentality

• Assigned tasks were treated as “projects” to be carried out by project teams and judged from the perspective of project metrics

• Evacuation and shelter were just another project to get accomplished

Project Management as I understand It

What is a Project?– A project is a temporary effort

to create a unique product or service. Projects usually include constraints and risks regarding cost, schedule or performance outcome.

© Copyright 1997, James R. Chapman, All rights reserved.

Project Management as I understand It

What is Project Management?– Project management is a set

of principles, practices, and techniques applied to lead project teams and control project schedule, cost, and performance risks to result in delighted customers.


Implications

– constraints and risks – focus on

• costs, • schedules• performance outcomes

Demands

Boundaries

Good Project Management

The project manager should: • Understand the project

requirements and ensure they are thoroughly and unambiguously documented;

• Prepare a project plan with achievable cost, schedule, and performance goals;

• Identify and manage project risks; • Ensure the project team is well-

organized, adequately staffed, and working well together;

Good Project Management (2)

• Manage project cost, schedule, requirements, and design baselines so they are traceable;

• Report meaningful metrics for cost, schedule, quality, and risk;

• Conduct regular status and design reviews;

• Ensure the adequacy of project documentation and testing;

• Maintain meaningful communications among project stakeholders; and

• Manage the project to attain the project goals and achieve stakeholder satisfaction.


But… is Flood Reaction a Project?

The Event

The Event

Lack of Communication

A 2004 report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that more than 80 percent of cities said they did not have two-way radio communications with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Customs and other federal agencies or bureaus.

Lack of Clarity about Responsibility

Organization by Function not Region

Unwillingness to delegate authority

A Sad Example

The Scenario: A Barge needing safe anchorage during a forecast storm

The Project Response: Find a Safe Port, Secure the Cargo, Secure the Ship, Evacuate the Crew and establish Communications and Transport for after the Storm

A Sad Example (continued)

SAFE PORT

A Sad Example (continued)

Levee Breach

Unexpected Results

The Immediate Aftermath• Blame game• Law suits etc.• Selective attention

Blame game

Law suits etc.

Selective attention

Rita contrast

• More preparation

Rita contrast

• More command & control

Rita contrast

• Better Communications

Lessons that could have been learned, but were not• Situationalism• Cross Functionalism• Deployment of Media• Long tails• Communication• Chain of Command

Situationalism

Judgment of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed.

SituationalismSituations represent the most complete way of understanding our

experience of the surrounding world and the human qualities of the world They also endow experience with durability in relation to which other experiences can acquire meaning and can form our memory and history. The temporal dimension makes the process of differentiating and stabilizing situations more comprehensible. The deeper we move into history, the more situations have in common until we reach the level of myth, which is their ultimate comprehensible foundation. Myth is the dimension of culture that opens the way to the unity of our experience and to the unity of our world. The persistence of primary symbols contributes decisively to the formation of secondary symbols and finally to the formation of paradigmatic situations. Paradigmatic situations are similar in nature to institutions, deep structures, and archetypes.

• Dalibor Vesely

Cross Functionalism

What Good Is A Beautifully-Designed Building If It Has A Weak Foundation and Lousy Plumbing?

Deployment of Media

From

To

Long tails

Catastrophes are not to be evaluated using standard deviations and net present values

Long tail events will occur the question is how to deal with them

Communication

New systems

Chain of Command

General lessons

• Is it a Project?

• Does Context Matter?

• Does Embodiment Matter?

• Do Auto-Correlations Matter?

Complex Systems Thinking

• Inter-relatedness• Ambiguity• Emergence• Multiple Levels• Multiple Perspectives• Weak Signals

Complex Systems Thinking

We live in a time that is exemplified by fleeting messages, complex shifting meanings and mercurial contexts.

William Seaman

Our identities are constructed along narrative principles, and often constructed and reconstructed in the actual telling of stories about ourselves in daily life, in family groups, etc

Jerome Bruner

‘we tell our lives as narratives, but we experience them as hypertexts’.

Jay Lemke

The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is never the less the map that proceeds the territory — precession of simulacra- that engenders the territory. Jean Baudrillard

Boundaries are a big issue

Complexity thinking worries about compartmentalization

Identity of actors, situations, and contexts is seldom stable and often time proceeds in multiple directions

Emergence and weak signals raise questions about metrics, baselines, and goals

Implications for Project Mgmt

– constraints and risks – focus on

• costs, • schedules• performance outcomes

Demands

Boundaries

Complexity raises doubts about

• traceable baselines• unambiguous requirements• defined plan• considered risks • identified team • meaningful metrics

So what does this mean for PM?

• unambiguous requirements -- maybe • defined plan – at risk of redefinition• considered risks – but more could arise• identified team – may be inadequate• traceable baselines – may need revision• meaningful metrics – about the wrong

things?• meaningful communications – more difficult• attain goals -- maybe

Complexity Thinking Asks:

Is It a Project?

So that we can avoid

Given a Hammer…

Making Project Management

Is it a Project?

• Test #1

Is it a Project?

• Test #2“To a River be a Canyon”

vs

Is it a Project?

Reaction to:Expectations are merely

premature resentments.

Not a Project

A Project


• Does Context Matter?

Does Context Matter?

Outside the licensed domains of literature and jokes, the uncontrollable manifestations of parapraxes and dreams, the possibilities of meaning in a word are stringently limited by its context. The more that context bears down upon the word, the less the word will quiver with signification; until we reach a fully determining context, under whose pressure the word will lie inert, pinned down, proffering its single meaning... But at this point something else will have happened to it: it will have become completely redundant. The context will now allow only one meaning to be perceived in the gap which it occupies and anything — or nothing at all — will be interpreted as providing that meaning.

Derek Attridge




• Does Embodiment Matter?

Does Embodiment Matter?

What we normally refer to as reality, believing that it is some-thing fixed and absolute, is always a result of our ability to experience, visualize, and articulate-in other words, to represent so as to participate in the world. …. There is a point where the interpretation and the way of making come so close to each other that they become fully reciprocal: what we know contributes to what we make, and what is already made contributes substantially to what it is possible to know.

Dalibor Vesely






• Do Auto-Correlations Matter?

Do Auto Correlations Matter?

Do Auto Correlations Matter?

Why yes……..

BecauseALL of LIFE is NOT a

PROJECT

Documents

Provocative Talk #1 Michael Lissack October, 2005