Project Resilience: The Art of Noticing, Interpreting, Preparing, Containing and Recovering

by Elmar Kutsch, Mark Hall

As the title suggests, Project Resilience is about making projects and project managers more resilient. The authors look at projects not simply from a 'mechanistic' approach in which work can be broken down, executed and controlled as a series of interlocking parts but rather as 'organic' constructs, living entities existing for a finite period of time, consisting of people, structures and processes. These entities are constantly challenged by environmental adversity - risk, uncertainty and complexity. Resilience involves finding ways to help project managers notice more, interpret adversity more realistically, prepare themselves better for it, contain and recover from it quicker and more appropriately. The book has two purposes: it offers a glimpse into our tendencies to be irrational in the face of adversity: risk, uncertainty and complexity. The second purpose is to offer a new perspective to aid in managing risky, and in particular uncertain and complex projects. The authors go beyond commonly-accepted standards in project management with the aim of providing an understanding of how to implement project-wide resilience. The purpose is to guide, not to prescribe. It is best used as a trigger for a thinking process to define your own unique approach to managing uncertainty, not to replace your experience and judgement. Ultimately, it has been written to challenge traditional wisdom in project management, and to address the rationale for creative best practices.

236 pages, ebook

Published March 9, 2016

Reviews

[BCS · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent, non-prescriptive book has taken me a long time to read. Although not lengthy or difficult to understand, it is so thought provoking that I had to keep putting it down to think. If you are familiar with Daniel Kahneman ‘s ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ then you will be familiar with the concept of bias and you will be already prepared for this book. For example, optimism bias is discussed as being rampant in all stages of projects from incentivisation of low estimation right up to believing that your team will be better than all the other teams at handling a particular risk.

The main premise of Project Resilience is that risk can be managed but uncertainty cannot. It is the unknown unknown that gets you in the end. Complex projects with many inter-connections and inter-contextual relationships are difficult to manage with a rules-based approach in a siloed and hierarchical organisation. But even in flat-structured organisations, complex planning tasks can instil a confidence that is very difficult to overcome when trouble arises. Instead, the authors are promoting a more mindful approach that values flexibility, communication and empowerment of expertise.

Each chapter has a useful format that covers a stage in the authors taxonomy of resilience: Noticing; Interpreting; Preparing; Containing and Recovery. Some of the lures or biases or errors that might explain why a crisis occurred at this stage come first. Then there are some strategy suggestions for how to avoid these pitfalls and then some gentle tips for what a mindful leader might do to recover at that stage. Each chapter includes several case studies and some short literature surveys of topics like mindfulness; causal maps; scenario planning to encourage further reading.

There are recurring discussions about the empowerment culture required in order to cope post-crisis when walls go up, hidden rivalries emerge and collaboration can turn adversarial and the opportunity to improvise a way forward disappears. A ‘just culture’ looks at the system that created the crisis, not who. Management can provide the slack needed for regular reflection and conversations that create the feedback loops that recognise a pre-crisis.

Resilience is not a SMART goal, but the authors nudge the reader to reflect on the gaps between those goals that are measurable in order to increase vigilance. Like a good Pilates class, you are encouraged to develop your core. I highly recommend this book.

Review by Gabrielle Liddy

[Peter Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb book for any project professional. The authors challenge the normal rules-based approach to risk and uncertainty, and set out an alternative that emphasises 'human centred cognition' and an essentially mindful approach. They walk through why this is important in contrast to the rules based approach, and practical steps for implementing this thinking as a project leader. Not a prescription, but wonderfully thought provoking.