Articles

Start Date:	Thursday, September 08, 2011
Start Time:	08:30 AM
End Date:	Thursday, September 08, 2011
End Time:	04:30 PM
Location:	Holiday Inn Express - Woonsocket
Members:	USD 200.00
Non-Members:	USD 220.00
Early Bird Discount:	USD 0.00
Early Bird End Date:
Presenter:	Mark Kozak-Holland

"Managing Projects in the Face of Meddling Stakeholders"

Learning Objectives

You will learn how the lessons learned from Titanic’s project and disaster can be applied to projects today. The workshop juxtaposes the Titanic case study and modern projects so that we can learn from the disaster how:

• non-functional requirements can get overshadowed by functional requirements,
• the executive sponsor can unwittingly compromise the project,
• architects can fail to stand by principles when under pressures,
• testing can get compromised when the schedule slips,
• project over confidence can invalidate some project stages.

Entertaining and full of intriguing historical details, the workshop helps project managers see the impact of decisions similar to the ones that they make every day. It helps explain the story and to help drive home some simple lessons.

Summary Description of Workshop

The process of gathering and managing requirements can be difficult enough but when stakeholders start to meddle a project can get quickly out of control.

This interactive workshop (half-day and full-day versions) probes the difficulties in managing principal stakeholders and the sponsor through the requirements process, and how they can unwittingly compromise the project. Using the Titanic case study the workshop looks at the construction project that designed, built, and launched the ship through the modern lens of the PMBoK nine knowledge areas. The workshop reviews the background as to how White Star initiated and planned a project to outpace its competition with 3 super liners, using the latest in emerging technologies. The sponsor's determination “to create the ultimate passenger (first class) experience” became the project mantra. The workshop then analyzes each of the project stages and shows how stakeholder meddling, that started in the requirements process, caused continual problems for the naval architects. Their inability to control the meddling led to compromises which then led to serious flaws in a supposedly "perfect ship," considered so safe that it did not even need a full complement of lifeboats. With the safety systems compromised the probability of a disaster increased substantially with the pomp and grandeur of a maiden voyage.

Workshop participants will be given a chance to use their skills to tackle the difficult project management dilemma of interfering stakeholders. The workshop also explains how through careful marketing the ship was considered by practically all to be an unsinkable ship. This raised the complacency, during the early days of the ship's operations, and allowed major mistakes to be made which led to the disaster. All of these disastrous compromises and mistakes were fully avoidable. It resulted in a collision that put an end to the ship on its maiden voyage.

Through exercises the workshop participants assess the risks through the various project stages and how these were managed by the project team.

Cancellations:

PLEASE NOTE: The event planner and caterer require a head count for planning purposes which OSPMI provides upon the close of meeting registration. Once that count is submitted, we are charged for the materials and meals whether or not registered attendees are able to make it to the meeting. For that reason we are unable to honor cancellations following the close of our meeting registration scheduled for 11:55 pm August 31, 2011.