Managing Crisis

the activities you are accustomed to doing. You may need to make hundreds if not

thousands of decisions quickly, and many of these are decisions you never thought

that you would have to make. This is crisis project management.

UNDERSTANDING CRISIS MANAGEMENT

The field of crisis management is generally acknowledged to have started in 1982

when seven people died after ingesting extra strength Tylenol capsules that were

laced with cyanide. Johnson & Johnson, the parent of Tylenol, handled the situation in such a manner that it became the standard for crisis management.

Today, crises are neither rare nor random. They are part of our everyday

lives. Crises cannot always be foreseen or prevented, but when they occur, we

must do everything possible to manage them effectively. We must also identify

lessons learned and best practices so that mistakes are not repeated on future

crises that will certainly occur.

Sorne crises are so well entrenched in our minds that they are continuously

referenced in a variety of courses in business schools. Sorne crises that have

become icons in society are:

Managing Crisis

Prolects

BACKGROUND

Project managers have become accustomed to managing within a structure process

such as an enterprise project management methodology. The statement of work

has gone through several iterations and is c1early defined. A work breakdown

structure exists and everyone understands their roles and responsibilities as defined

in the responsibility assignment matrix (RAM). AlI of this took time to do.

This is the environment we an take for granted. But now let's change the scenario a bit. The president of the company calls you into his office and informs you

that several people have just died using one of your company's products. You are

being placed in charge of this crisis project. The lobby of the building is swamped

with the news media, all of whom want to talk to you to hear your plan for addressing the crisis. The president...