Homework 2 Ashley V. Twyman
Project Management Fundamentals 9/29/2008 – 11/9/2008 Dr. Joel Light
Homework 2 page 1 “Do Good” by Kathleen Ryan O’Connor, was the article I chose for my second homework assignment. The article discusses how complicated project management can be, and how it is applicable, not only a typical work environment, but also during crisis times in coordination with humanitarian efforts. O’Connor introduces Paul Giammalvo to the reader, who is an Indonesiabased project management consultant and educator, boasting over 35 years of experience. The article goes on to discuss how it was difficult for Giammalvo to work with the Indian Ocean coastal villages when they were struck with a large and devastating tsunami in 2004. The death total during the tsunami was over 200,000 and Giammalvo helped with the large job of assisting these people with rebuilding their lives, literally from the ground up. You would think that working on a project of this magnitude there would be many difficulties with the project, and Giammalvo notes the largest difficulty was with the people and their culture. The article notes that many people whose homes were demolished in the tsunami were local fishermen, who were very reluctant to move the location of their homes to higher ground because they desired to be near their boats and felt a personal tie to the land. It was their land and no one was going to tell them that they couldn’t have it! “‘The second we took the foundation away they thought the government or their neighbors would take their property away,’ Giammalvo says.” The article also establishes that there are many differences between international project management and typical corporate project management. Denis Thuillier is
introduced to the reader. He is a professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal’s School of Management. He is quoted as saying “‘International development projects are Homework 2 page 2 quite different from classical projects,’ Thuillier says. ‘There are special constraints.’” One of the major constraints that is addressed is the issue of trust. “Trust among players in international development can sometimes be difficult to establish, but critical to success.” I chose this article because the brief introduction on the website interested me with its discussion of how project management can be useful and valid in relation to humanitarian efforts. I consider myself somewhat of a humanitarian and enjoy when a subject I am learning about can be related to a subject that has as large an impact on the welfare of a country, or even the world. One thing I found very interesting was, in the beginning of the article when O’Connor states “But risk and reward take on new meanings when the stage is global and the product is improving lives.” This is so true! We learn about assessing and evaluating risk within projects in our texts, but what happens when there is not a text to learn from, such as a situation like disaster relief? The playing field concerning risk in a project like this is so much larger than what is typically thought of when discussing project management. The bigger the project the greater the possible risk that could be encountered! Overall, I thought this was a good article that contributed to the project management class. It was interesting to think outside of the project management box.
Typically, I think of business environments that need project managers, but I learned that project management skills can be applied in a much larger way. It was interesting to learn about this aspect of project management.
References
Do Good, written by Kathleen O’Connor, from projectsatwork.com, retrieved October 2, 2008 from http://www.projectsatwork.com/