
A schematic representation of the blowout preventer that failed in the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. In a report released in June of 2014, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board explained how undetected issues in the blowout preventer, including miswiring and design flaws, led to the disaster. The report also states that these issues could be present today in blowout preventers in widespread use throughout the industry, and that additional blowout preventer failures are possible. The CSB Web site offers a marvelous video, including computer animation of the failure. Image courtesy U.S. Chemical Safety Board.
As we saw last time, the difference between a risk and an issue is that risks are adverse events that might or might not happen. They are uncertain. On the other hand, issues are adverse events that have already arisen, or are certain to do so. Undetected issues are especially problematic when we treat them as risks, instead of mounting serious efforts to uncover them.
Let's now explore tactics for uncovering undetected issues. The general principle underlying all these approaches is an obvious one: Look for undetected issues in the places where you're most likely to find them.
- Involve the customer in development — from the beginning
- When developers and customers collaborate, they educate each other. Customers don't always know what they want or need. Sometimes they think they know, but they're mistaken. Still, customers can make valuable contributions to development processes, and participation in development helps refine their knowledge of what they want or need. The sooner this happens, the closer the product comes to delighting the customer. And when this mutual education doesn't happen — or when it happens too late — we sometimes discover issues only after the product is delivered.
- Use what you're building — early
- Actual usage is Actual usage is the method
most likely to expose the
problems that arise
in actual usagethe method most likely to expose the problems that arise in actual usage. Use what you're building (or parts thereof) as early as possible, or recruit actual users to do so. If needed, install placeholders for incomplete components. Placeholders are usually worth the investment, because early usage that exposes serious problems can reduce rework. - Exploit organizational history
- In retrospectives, note the occurrence of undetected issues, the time it took before they were detected, and the cost of not having detected them promptly. Review the observations for patterns. Apply this information to future and ongoing efforts, checking for repetitions of these patterns, and incorporating into designs of products, services, projects, controls, and procedures, clever mechanisms that will signal the presence of any of these patterns. Use the cost information to set the levels of these investments.
- Account for the effects of cognitive biases
- Cognitive biases are patterns of thinking that lead to systematic deviations from rationality and objectivity. They can cause us, for example, to dismiss indications of undetected issues in products or projects. Learn about cognitive biases and incorporate safeguards into your processes to reduce the impact of cognitive biases.
- Test with undetected issues in mind
- Tests and inspections typically focus on determining whether the items tested meet requirements and quality standards. That isn't enough. If you have evidence of patterns of undetected issues in earlier work, broaden the testing focus to check for undetected issues. If you're unaware of patterns of undetected issues, make some brilliant guesses.
Your organization probably has a number of projects underway. Almost certainly there are some undetected issues. What are they? Where are they? First issue in this series
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Related articles
More articles on Project Management:
Backtracking in Incremental Problem Solving
- Incremental problem solving is fashionable these days. Whether called evolutionary, incremental, or
iterative, the approach entails unique risks. Managing those risks sometimes requires counterintuitive action.
The Politics of the Critical Path: II
- The Critical Path of a project is the sequence of dependent tasks that determine the earliest completion
date of the effort. We don't usually consider tasks that are already complete, but they, too, can experience
the unique politics of the critical path.
Symbolic Self-Completion and Projects
- The theory of symbolic self-completion holds that to define themselves, humans sometimes assert indicators
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has consequences for managing project-oriented organizations.
Ten Approaches to Managing Project Risks: I
- Risk management usually entails coping with losses if they do occur. Here's Part I of a concise summary
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Joint Leadership Teams: OODA
- Some teams, business units, or enterprises are led not by individuals, but by joint leadership teams
of two or more. They face special risks that arise from the organizations that host them, from the team
they lead, or from within the joint leadership team itself.
See also Project Management and Project Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming May 14: Working with the Overconfident
- A cognitive bias known as the Overconfidence Effect causes us to overestimate the reliability of our judgments. Decisions we make based on those judgments are therefore suspect. But there are steps we can take to make our confidence levels more realistic, and thus make our decisions more reliable. Available here and by RSS on May 14.
And on May 21: Mismanaging Project Managers
- Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don't grant those project managers control of needed resources. Nor do they hold project sponsors or other senior managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with project work. Here's a catalog of behaviors worth looking at. Available here and by RSS on May 21.
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