This presentation was initially developed a few years ago and presented to a large group of business initiative program and project managers at a large Canadian Financial Institution in support of their running of large scale business transformation and systems integration project activities. It's focus was to give the practitioner some philosophical guidance on dealing with troubled programs and projects

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Date: May 22 2014
“Crisis? What Crisis?”
Crisis Management for Program Managers
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2. CONFIDENTIAL
“Crisis? What Crisis?”

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“Crisis? What Crisis?” – A Definition
WWW.THEFREEDICTIONARY.COM/CRISIS
• cri·sis (krss) n. pl. cri·ses (-sz)
• 1. a. A crucial or decisive point or
situation; a turning point.
• b. An unstable condition, as in
political, social, or economic
affairs, involving an impending
abrupt or decisive change.
• 2. A sudden change in the course
of a disease or fever, toward either
improvement or deterioration.
• 3. An emotionally stressful
event or traumatic change in a
person's life.
• 4. A point in a story or drama
when a conflict reaches its
highest tension and must be
resolved.
WIKEPEDIA DEFINITION
A crisis (plural: "crises"; adjectival form:
"critical") (from the Greek κρίσις, krisis) is
any event that is, or expected to lead to, an
unstable and dangerous situation affecting
an individual, group, community or whole
society. Crises are deemed to be negative
changes in the security, economic,
political, societal or environmental affairs,
especially when they occur abruptly, with
little or no warning. More loosely, it is a
term meaning 'a testing time' or an
'emergency event'.
Having an agreed to definition of a crisis usually helps?

4. CONFIDENTIAL
“Crisis? What Crisis?” – A Definition
• A PROJECT CRISIS
DEFINITION MAY
NOT BE SO CLEAR

5. CONFIDENTIAL
“Crisis? What Crisis?” – A Definition
• Does this definition work for you?
• Project crisis definition (Austrian company)
• A project crisis is an instability of a project, which requires a change process, to
develop a new project identity.
• A project crisis is to be defined, if the business case of the investment initialized by
the project considered, is not favourable anymore.
• Not, if there is e.g. – a cost overrun of more then 30%, – a schedule overrun of
50%, – a project partner going bankrupt
Would you agree with this
statement?

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“Crisis? What Crisis?”
– A Definition
• …..But How do We Get Out of It?

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Crisis = “The C in Crisis stands for Calm”
• A LESSON FROM FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR, RUDI
GIULIANI:
• "My father, when I was very young, used to say to
me, 'If you are ever in an emergency, if you are ever
in a fire and everybody gets very excited, very
emotional, then you become the calmest person in
the room'," says Giuliani, recalling the experience.
• "Make yourself calmer than you feel, force yourself
to pretend you're calm and you'll be able to figure
out how to get out of there if you remain calm. So I
kept reminding myself of that. I was in charge, I was
the person they were looking to and if I lost it they all
would. I would have to say to myself, 'You've got to
remain calm, you've got to stay focused.'“

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Crisis = “The C inCrisis stands for Change Management”
• IF YOU ARE IN A CRISIS
IT’S PRETTY CLEAR
THAT CHANGE IS
NEEDED!
• CHANGE IS USUALLY
ABOUT THE
FUNDAMENTALS……
• CHANGE MANAGEMENT (ONLINE DEFINITION) IS A
STRUCTURED APPROACH TO
SHIFTING/TRANSITIONING INDIVIDUALS, TEAMS, AND
ORGANIZATIONS FROM A CURRENT STATE TO A DESIRED
FUTURE STATE. IT IS AN ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESS
AIMED AT HELPING EMPLOYEES TO ACCEPT AND
EMBRACE CHANGES IN THEIR CURRENT BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT.
• IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT, CHANGE MANAGEMENT
REFERS TO A PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS WHERE
CHANGES TO A PROJECT ARE FORMALLY INTRODUCED
AND APPROVED.

9. CONFIDENTIAL
Crisis = “The r inCrisis stands for Risk Management”
• RISK MANAGEMENT IS :
• PROACTIVE
• AVOIDS DANGER
• WATCHFUL OF THE WARNING
SIGNS AND TRIGGERS
• IT’S NOT AN ADMINISTRATIVE
PROCESS!
• YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE TIME!

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Crisis=“TheiinCrisisstandsforIdentifyandmanagetotheFacts”andthenrespondaccordingly

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Crisis = “The s in Crisis stands for stabilize & solve
problems”

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Crisis = “The i in Crisis stands for Issue Management”
• ISSUES
MANAGEMENT IS :
• RECOGNIZING
• CLARITY
• PROACTIVE
• URGENT
• IT’S NOT AN
ADMINISTRATIVE
PROCESS!

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Crisis = “The sinCrisis stands for” Stakeholder Management

14. CONFIDENTIAL
Thank You!
Contact Location
1 Chris.Lamoureux@Veriday.com
2
3
905.273.4399x224
www.veriday.com