Do you agree that innovative people cannot be also people that understand, apply and adhere to standards?

I absolutely agree that better adherence to the standards, impact analysis, proper communication to stakeholders would have avoided the issues. While the person in the article decided to turn it into a DYI project to save money, he did not do any impact analysis. He had no idea what would happen if the spillway to the dam filled up. If he was aware of the utility of that spillway, maybe he would not do that.

There is another possibility, his sole priority was saving money and he did not care about anything else. He was not aware of the impact or maybe he did not care about the impact.

He should have reached out to other stakeholders who might have known the importance, but there was no communication with stakeholders.

As a result, when the rainstorm hit, the dam broke down. Because there was no spillway anymore. The authorities who were in charge of the dam were not informed, so there was a major failure in communication. Not following proper processes costed a threat to lives.

 Considering these facts, I think the person should have followed standards, should have communicated to stakeholders analyzing options and should have done proper impact analysis before taking any decision.

 

I strongly believe innovators are perfectly capable of understanding the rules and adhering to standards. Some innovations are disruptive. Like when internal combustion engines replaced horse carts, or as we are currently witnessing autonomous vehicles.

Innovative people can definitely adhere to standards and apply them eventually. Like they did for cars or planes and everywhere else. As long as there is no regulation to stop innovation, I think we will be fine.

Innovators will continue innovating and improving. While experimenting with new autonomous technology, we saw people getting hurt. An Uber car killed a woman in Arizona while it was in autonomous mode (Levin,2018).

 There is always an element of risk with any new technology. But, these accidents are not happening because these tech giants are taking any short cuts. They are running their beta testing, and unfortunately, as it turned out, their product not really ready and someone had to die.

 But, Uber will continue working on the technology and so will other companies. Collectively they are all working to make the technology as perfect and efficient as possible. In other words, they are aware of the rules, they understand why the rules are important and they are working hard to follow the rules.

End of the day they all understand, if the cars are not good enough in autonomous mode, the customers will never buy them and that would not be good for business. Michelle LaBrosse mentions, “we need folks who still know how to learn the rules, understand why they exist, and create a safe environment for all.” I am sure the corporations are aware of this and they are doing everything they possibly can within the resources they have and maintaining the commitment to shareholder and owners of making a profit for them.

Drugmaker like AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson, and Johnson, are always trying to do something in the healthcare sector, they are experimenting, going through trials first so that they can improve their products for a greater good, and they have commercial interest too.  

 

The Crucial fundamental knowledge areas for managing projects (as per the PMBoK categorization) and project life cycle phases –

In the project life cycle we have the following phases –

Initiation phase – project objectives are identified

Planning phase – solution, scope, resources, risks etc. are identified

Implementation phase – this is when the plan is executed and progress is tracked

Closing phase – This is when the progress is tracked to ensure that deliverables are met and the quality plan is in place.

 

In life cycle, during the Planning phase this project has to be planned well. Analyzing different options to solve the problem, finding out the time and money and other available resources, scope of work, and most importantly performing impact analysis of each viable option and identifying associated risks. Once the risks are identified, the PM had to identify a mitigation plan for each risk item before going ahead with implementation.

 

PMBOK categorized knowledge in 10 areas –

      Managing integration – controlling all components which is part of the project as a whole

      Managing scope – defining the scope for the project

Managing schedule – every project starts on time and ends on a predefined time, and managing that the schedule is critical.

Managing costs- every the project comes with a budget, as part of this the cost gets monitored

Managing quality – within the time and budget the project needs to meet certain goals and quality control makes sure that project objectives are being met with a certain standard.

Managing human resource – the teams implementing the project have to be managed too during the project life cycle

Managing communication – this is essentially stakeholder management, keeping them informed

Managing risks – this includes risk identification and planning, analyzing risks, risk mitigation plan and risk monitoring.

Managing procurement – this is where vendors and selected, equipment and other necessary resources are purchased.

Managing stakeholders – internal and external stakeholder identification, communication with them, and managing them is a key component to achieve success.

So, for this project, I think every category was crucial. Procurement within budget, cost control, quality control. Since I do not think any of those things actually happened. But most importantly, after building the road they should have communicated to the stakeholders about the risk. So they should have done risk management too. Which evidently was not done. Internal and external stakeholders which would include the society, dam operator, and local authority none of them were informed about the changes or impact this project had. It was an utter failure of planning, risk management, quality management, and stakeholder and communication management.

 

 

References –

Retrieved on 6/23/2019. Retrieved from https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-hidden-costs-and-dangers-of-the-shortcut.php

Levin, s(March,2018). Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/uber-self-driving-car-kills-woman-arizona-tempe