Managing the Urgent and Unexpected

Twelve Project Cases and a Commentary

Stephen Wearne, Keith White-Hunt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317101314
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Sometimes unanticipated threats or opportunities create a situation in which work is required unexpectedly. On these occasions, such urgent and unexpected work demands an instant start, in contrast to the often lengthy processes of investigation, evaluation, development, selection and planning normal in businesses and public services before the start of a project. Managing the Urgent and Unexpected explores what is different managerially if work is unexpected, its implementation is urgent and an immediate start it is required. The authors draw on twelve cases ranging from the launch of the Freeview television system in the United Kingdom to the sifting and removal of the New York World Trade Center pile of debris following the 9/11 terrorist attack. They summarise how the response to each of these events was managed, demonstrate that opportunities may sometimes be created in the face of adversity and suggest how normal organizations can prepare to manage abnormal demands. Urgent and unexpected projects have to be rare in business or government to be economically and socially tolerable. And yet organizations can and should be prepared for the unexpected. The lessons offered here will help private and public organizations plan how to authorize and support future urgent work to take advantage of immediate new business opportunities or to protect or restore systems and services.

PART I
Narrative

Chapter 1
You Get a Start!

What’s Different?

Wise managers think ahead. Whether proposing a new product or process, a change of management or the purchase of a new building or IT system, the project should start with an objective agreed with committed stakeholders, an unambiguous definition, scope, plan, risk assessment, budget accepted by all parties, and prepared resources led by an empowered individual and project team supported by a trusted information system. In their own words this is what managers say when reflecting on their experience. In effect so say many books, textbooks, government reports and company guides in stating what is required to have the best chance of successful results.

So what is different if a project is urgent and unexpected given that it is to be started without prior study of its scope or how to deliver it? How is managing any urgent and unexpected project different from managing normal work? What are the lessons and ideas which may help? The purpose of this small book is to review some real-life urgent and unexpected projects and how they were started and managed to try to find common answers to these questions.

Twelve cases of urgent unexpected projects provide the basis of this book, drawing on reports and observations of how they were organized and managed. Use is also made of the more limited information available on some other urgent and unexpected projects. All these projects varied in their size, nature, resources then available for immediate use, the types of organizations involved, local conditions and public concern. All used engineering resources. All achieved their sponsor’s objectives. They do not necessarily represent every possible surprise which may require immediate action. They do provide an opportunity to consider what was different in managing them compared to normal practice.

The Cases

In two of the twelve cases the urgent work was required to respond to unexpected opportunities to offer new services (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Urgent work in response to unexpected opportunities

In three cases urgent unexpected engineering work was required for the protection of urban areas against physical threats (see Table 1.2).

Table 1.2 Urgent unexpected work to save assets under threat

Two cases were work to save threatened sections of assets (see Table 1.3).

Table 1.3 Urgent unexpected work to save assets under threat

In four of the twelve cases the urgent unexpected work was required to restore failed or severely damaged assets (see Table 1.4).

Table 1.4 Urgent unexpected work to restore failed or very damaged assets

And one case was massive work with the principal objective of finding survivors and evidence of the remains of buried victims of terrorism (see Table 1.5).

Table 1.5 Urgent unexpected work to find survivors and recover evidence of victims

The sponsors of these urgent and unexpected projects were the owners and operators of the assets.

Appendix 1 gives a summary of each of these cases and lists the sources used. The more limited information from other urgent and unexpected work is listed in Appendix 2.

Projects started urgently in order to meet a date set by a licence, financial support or a political promise but for which there was no intention to deliver the project any faster than normal after their start have not been used for this book as they do not meet the criteria of being both urgent and unexpected.

Other surprise events such as failures of products, services and projects are reported in the media and company or government publications. Many of these reports indicate whether the results of actions taken were successful, unsuccessful or in between. Unfortunately for our purposes of learning from them they do not include information on how the urgent unexpected work required was managed.

Limitations

There are some limitations to studying how urgent and unexpected projects are managed in comparison to normal practice.

One limitation is that arrangements to observe unexpected events cannot be made in advance. Learning from the unexpected is inevitably retrospective and its scope limited by the people and other sources of information accessible after the event. Published reports, conference papers, some interviews and individuals’ comments provided the information on the cases that are the basis of this book.

A second limitation is that among the many publications on the management of projects there are few studies that show what normal practice is. Since the classic first article by Gaddis (1959) on his experience and the pioneering analysis of some major construction projects by Morris and Hough (1987), many authors have offered concepts, lessons from case studies and techniques that seem logical for managing projects. Causes of success have been stated from various studies, but with little independent evidence showing the results of their testing on further projects. Causes of failure have been stated from such studies, but a model based upon avoiding causes of failure doesn’t establish what is normal.

Most of the principles and techniques for managing projects to be found in books and in company manuals may thus only be as valid as the common belief in Europe 600 years ago that the world is flat. At best they are a logical guide to thoughtful small steps beyond experience. They provide the advice summarized at the start of this chapter that a project should normally start with an objective agreed with committed stakeholders, an unambiguous definition, scope, plan, risk assessment and budget accepted by all parties, and prepared resources led by an empowered individual or project team supported by a trusted information system. What managers and analysts say is good advice is not always followed in practice, but this advice provides a model for comparison with projects that are not normal because they are urgent and unexpected.

Emergencies and Crises?

An emergency is defined as a sudden event requiring immediate action where there is thought to be a threat to life or property. None of the cases were emergencies in that sense, but four of them consisted of managing restoration and recovery work after emergencies. Four consisted of managing preventative work to forestall threatened emergencies. Two were new business opportunities. These two and the other three cases are apparently rather different. In their effects all twelve cases are the same in being triggered by a surprise event which demanded resources for urgent action.

If a project is unexpected and also urgent the result can be a crisis, what the dictionary defines as ‘a turning-point in progress’ or ‘a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent’ (Oxford English Dictionary) and medics say ‘when a change takes place which is decisive of recovery or death’. British Standard PAS 200: 2011 (BSI 2011) provides guidance on anticipating and managing business crises. It is similar to the advice on managing a project. The word ‘crisis’ implies that the result will be bad, or at least undesired. This is not necessarily true. Two of the cases examined show that unexpected events can be opportunities. The crisis then can be in applying resources quickly enough.

Every Case is Unique

Every project tends to seem unique to the individuals and organizations involved in it. An urgent and unexpected project may seem to those involved in it to be more unique than others. In this book we look for similarities and for differences in how twelve urgent unexpected projects were managed. To do this, Chapter 4 reviews how they were started. Chapter 5 reviews how they were managed. Chapter 6 then draws on these to compare reviews of urgent and unexpected projects with normal ones. Chapter 7 is a check list with comments on how business and government organizations can prepare for future urgent unexpected work. Chapter 8 summarizes what’s different in managing urgent unexpected projects and also lessons for ‘normal’ projects. But first, Chapters 2 and 3 first explore what is meant by describing work as ‘urgent’ and as ‘unexpected’.

Chapter 2
Urgent?

What is Urgent?

The dictionaries tell us that ‘urgent’ means demanding prompt action, priority, of pressing importance and working faster than normal.

Though many people might agree with this definition, they might differ in what they mean when they say something is urgent, or in what they understand when others use this word. What is seen as urgent at one level in an organization may not be seen as urgent at other levels, as noted by McDonough and Pearson (1993) in studying the impact of urgency on the performance of product development work. Various stakeholders, suppliers and other contributors to a project could similarly vary in their understanding and their response to work stated as being urgent. As was observed in another large company, working faster than normal may or may not mean priority in the use of resources. Interpretations of ‘urgent’ varied from a very strong and commanding ‘do it now at the expense of everything else’ to ‘business as usual – only quicker’.

In the way the word ‘urgent’ is used in practice there can thus be degrees of urgency which are open to different understandings. But they all agree that it means working faster than normal, and that this usually incurs increased cost.

Cost, Time and Performance

It is normal for all organizations to plan their work to try to use resources continuously, to avoid the cost of employing people and material resources unproductively. An unplanned temporary use of more resources to work faster for one project defined as urgent may thus incur greater costs. Alternatively, pressure to avoid these greater costs may cause reduction in the quality or safety of the work.

This potential conflict in priorities between the time allowed to deliver some work, its cost and its quality was depicted by Martin Barnes in his diagram now known as the ‘iron triangle’, shown in Figures 2.1 and 2.2. In this the term ‘performance’ embraces the quality, safety and fitness for purpose of the work done. The triangle indicates that priority to performance, to cost or to time is possible only at the expense of the other two.

2.1 Cost–time–performance triangle (Barnes 1971)

2.2 Urgent project objectives

The position of the letter N in Figure 2.1 indicates work for which these three variables are considered to be equally important. Figure 2.2 illustrates how the balance is different if the work U is urgent so that performance and delivery objectives override cost.

The iron triangle is a simple illustration of what can be complex decisions between qualitative and quantitative objectives, but using it to display what is thought to be the relative importance of the three variables may be helpful in checking whether all parties agree on what has priority. It can also remind them throughout the work of their commitment to the urgency it indicates.

Economic Speed of Projects

Agreeing that a piece of work is urgent doesn’t answer the question of how much extra cost to incur by working faster than normal.

One choice is to plan to work at the speed which incurs the minimum cost. Or, alternatively, to work at maximum speed. Or at a speed between the two extremes. Estimates of the likely cost of the work over a range of possible speeds of work are needed to decide between these choices and to plan the total time to be allowed for its delivery. Given this data the speed should be selected at which the net present value of extra financial return obtained earlier by faster working balances its extra cost. The same criterion should be used whether once delivered the product is expected to earn a financial return or whether to provide a social benefit that is measured in financial terms.

Figure 2.3 illustrates how the speed planned for delivering work affects its cost. Some costs increase with the time taken, as indicated by the C_t curve in the diagram, for instance financing the use of resources. Other costs decrease, as indicated by the C_m curve, for instance the direct costs of hired resources. The sum of the two is shown by the Total Cost curve.

2.3 Relationship between planned duration and predicted cost of delivery

Continuous curves are a simplification in Figure 2.3. In practice, the relationships may include step changes in choices in the capacity of resources.

In principle the relationship indicated in Figure 2.3 between planned duration and consequent cost provides a basis for classifying work required into three distinct degrees of urgency:

• Minimum initial cost – If the objective is to complete for mi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART I NARRATIVE
• PART II ANALYSIS
• PART III FUTURE NEEDS
• Appendix 1 Case Summaries
• 2 References to Publications on Other Cases
• References
• Index