Since we are on the topic of troubled projects, I started thinking about what has now been branded the Deepwater Horizon Response Project.  This situation has similarities to many project calamities one might encounter in the course of dealing with internal or external customer organizations.  A customer organization messes up, BIG TIME, and you have to step in and turn it around. 

In this case, the project manager is retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is in charge of the federal government’s response to the oil spill resulting from the April 20th explosion at one of British Petroleum’s (BP) offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.  His title is officially National Incident Commander, but that just means he’s the most senior project manager on this mess.  I simply can’t imagine all the constraints he is juggling as he attempts to right things in the aftermath of the largest offshore oil spill in the history of the United States. 

Just consider force majeure effects the project manager has to deal with, particularly the weather.  Today, Day 96, brings the news that the cleanup effort that was halted due to the expected arrival of Tropical Storm Bonnie, is back on, as Bonnie failed to materialize.  Before anyone breathes a sigh of relief, however, officials are quick to point out that this is the season for tropical storms.  Weather experts are predicting ten this year and Bonnie was only the second.    

In Cindy’s blog last week, she talked about managing the public relations around troubled projects.  In the Deepwater Horizon situation, oil rig owner BP can hardly have done a worse job in the PR department.  CEO Tony Hayward has come across as flippant and out of touch in his many appearances before an American public that is very concerned about the environmental and economic impacts of this catastrophe.  In a dubious attempt to improve the company’s image, BP Board Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg stated several times that “We care about the small people,” which didn’t necessarily warm the hearts of the stakeholders who had not, until this point, considered themselves “the small people”.  Fortunately, Allen has done a much better job with project PR than his “client”, BP, by appearing to be a straight shooter: providing frequent updates with as much clarity as the situation allows.  

With the passage of time and lawsuits and congressional hearings, we will learn much more about all the things that went wrong with the Deepwater Horizon rig and how they contributed to this disaster, resulting in the need for a “response project”.  And certainly the response itself will be studied by scholars of all types of disciplines, who will attempt to capture lessons learned from this highly visible, and downright painful, public mess.

But as project managers who may at some point in our careers be called on to lead an almost impossibly troubled project, what lessons can we learn as we watch the situation unfold, from a safe distance and with an increasing benefit of hindsight as each day passes?  And what can we identify that is going right, so we can repeat them on our own troubled projects?

I am eager to hear your observations.  At this point in the response project, I can identify two areas for the “What Went Right” column:

  1. Admiral Allen as the leader of the response project definitely goes in the “What Went Right” column.  Not only does he have almost 40 years of service in the Coast Guard, a Master of Public Administration degree from George Washington University and a Master’s degree in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management, he was also lead Hurricane Katrina onsite relief efforts in September 2005, and his stewardship of that project was highly regarded.  People in the Gulf know him and respect him.  He has a track record and the perception is that if anyone can get their arms around this mess, it’s him.
  2. Another check in the “What Went Right” column goes to adequate resources.  So far, BP has seemed quite willing to foot the bill for the cleanup effort, although many of the business affected need more relief faster.  With time, we will understand exactly who is at fault for what, and BPs willingness to accept responsibility may turn out to be a shrewd PR ploy instead of a demonstration of corporate responsibility.  Nonetheless, right now it’s nice to see resources being committed instead bickering about who will pay for it.  There will be plenty of time for that later…

Please let me know what your thoughts are about the response project, and if you can identify anything else that is going right.