Risks and People

Peopleare the most valuable asset for the project; nevertheless, they are the most dangerous source of risks. Human beings are condemned to be sometimes fallacious; some of us tend to live it as a life sentence.

Picking up the brightest is a Mantra. However, the process of staffing the team(s) is influenced by many factors, starting from specific knowledge of the legacy product, to the over-availability. And then productivity is not the only dimension for evaluating the impact (we are speaking about risks) of the person on the outcome.

The importance of leadership (caring of people)

Once the team has been formed (when the process includes the acceptance of rules – spanning from communication to shared measurement units), the project manager has the mission of creating working relationships with every stakeholder. Yet this job has to be modulated in view of the importance (i.e. decision and/or influence power).

For the reasons seen before (and many others), it is possible that the producers’ team includes a person with different experience and professional background – where the latter can be read as fewer bright successes.

This scenario can push these people at the boundaries of the team. Some of them could suffer from communication problems. This is not a foray into psychology, just a simple consideration that working together requires a good grade of collaboration skills. The incommunicative problem could be gotten around through other people. This means offering them two choices:

1. Improving the situation with the addition of resources (some energy spent on counseling the person)
2. Acting in a way that the power (i.e. knowledge) withheld by the person is made available or reduced in importance.

Taking the right decision (caring of the people)

A well done “walking through” process can offer, besides the technical validation of the proposal, a sort of “run the gauntlet” for the hypothesis left on the table.

The most difficult task remains to pay the due respect for each person’s fatigue for their good works. In this process it is included the careful avoidance of any humiliation. This consideration shall go beyond the risk of alienating people enthusiasm; it has to be focused on the need of leaving space for alternatives.

In some previous posts, I suggested the difficulties created by the preparation of “detailed” plans to be adopted in case of serious events. The key word remains “details” both for the resources hijacked by this task and the limited protection offered by just one idea in front of the many possible scenarios.

The proposals set aside in the first “final” decision, can be stored and analyzed again in the light shed by the new situation (hopefully as soon as the trigger on the event has been fired). This policy offers a good opportunity for reassuring each proponent that the choice made is not a refusal, it is a necessary way to going on with the certainty that a change (if approved by Project Sponsor) is still possible.

Truck number

I encountered this definition in a post enlightened by Better Projects : Real Option. It defined the minimum people needed for completing the work-package. These “chosen few” are the repository of the necessary knowledge either technological or related to the legacy product (i.e. company’s culture). From Risk Management viewpoint, these people represent the core of the team and, if their knowledge is parceled (as normally happens when each developer works for his/her own) every one involuntarily becomes a big source of risk.

However, this is a systemic risk. Its foundations are based on the lack of proper “Collaboration Plan”.  Sometimes this conditions is called “silo knowledge” when it is referred to different departments. The team itself can suffer from the same syndrome, if the Project Manager does not pay sufficient attention to each team cohesion.

The other side of the coin is represented by micro-management. A solution can come from a good planning for spending some energy to deal with every stakeholder.