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Project
Managers: Are Your Risks Becoming Cost Overruns, |
Management and Technology
Associates works with mid- to large-scale companies in the
aerospace, defense, financial, homeland security, information technology,
manufacturing, petrochemical, technology, and utility industries, and other
selected fields who want to reduce project uncertainty, and better develop and deliver
products within budget, on-time, and meeting performance requirements. We typically
work on mid- to large-scale projects and programs ($10 Million to $10+ Billion)
that involve cost, schedule, and/or technical performance challenges from
concept formulation through product delivery phases. We have also successfully worked on very small projects ($250
Thousand) and very large programs ($100+ Billion) as well, and have had primary
responsibility for risk management in several winning proposals with a contract
and option dollar value far exceeding $10 Billion.
If you’re like most project
managers and senior staff, you’re facing
increased pressure to reduce project uncertainty, contain and eliminate product
cost overruns, schedule slips, and technical shortfalls, and more accurately
predict potential project outcomes. We
help clients develop and deliver products on-budget, on-time, and meeting
performance requirements, and assist them in balancing cost, schedule,
performance, and risk. Companies that
are willing to invest in risk management and associated implementation can
receive these benefits on near-term projects. This investment can also create a
proactive risk management culture that will improve competitive posture in the
mid- to long-run.
State-of-the-art project risk
management is helping many organizations and their projects
reduce project uncertainty, adverse cost, schedule, and/or technical
performance project impacts, and allow more accurate predictions of project
outcomes. For example, we have found
that a single risk averted late in product development
can save millions of dollars on a mid-
to large-scale project and pay for most, if not all, risk management
expenditures. Averting more than one
risk will often lead to cost savings (increased profits) and better delivery
schedules.
Several times we have helped
avert risks that have led to millions of dollars saved, increased technical
performance, and shorter delivery schedules for our clients!
What Makes
Us Stand Out?
Did
you know that most risk management consultants and trainers have never had
long-term responsibility and accountability to make the entire risk management
process work on a real project? Why
“risk” your project on people with limited experience and ability?
We
have both the knowledge and “hands on” experience to help you on your
project: reduce project uncertainty,
determine previously undetected risks, prevent known risks from becoming
problems, better understand your entire risk management process and how it
integrates with other key processes, find potential risk management process
shortfalls, and implement your desired improvements.
We
have served more than 25 times as a risk manager and mentor to risk managers
covering all facets of project risk management and related disciplines where we
were responsible for implementing and making risk management work daily on a
wide variety of programs. These risk
manager and mentor assignments have lasted from months to more than one year. In addition, we have held numerous long-term
project management and technical positions reporting directly to organization
executives, program managers, and project managers, and have served as project
managers on a variety of different activities. Our “hands on” risk management, project management, and technical
experience with long-term responsibility and accountability far exceeds that of
almost all risk management consultants and trainers. (We challenge you to look at and verify their resumes—often
people being promoted as experienced risk management consultants have never
been a responsible risk manager, or if so only one or two times.) In addition, we have contributed to and
developed risk management policy that is in widespread use across industry and
government, served as high-level industry and government advisors, served as
short-term mentors and advisors, and received numerous letters of commendation
for our work. We have directly saved
millions of dollars on several programs.
We develop
enhancements tailored to your project based upon world-class best practices and
almost a thousand documented risk management lessons learned. And we help you efficiently bring risk
management into your day-to-day project management and systems engineering
processes so that risks can be dealt with before they become costly
problems. This gives you a long-term
risk management solution that you can use on current and future
projects—something that most other risk management consultants and trainers
can’t provide.
Some
Additional Client Benefits From Using Our Services:
·
We work with your
project management to help create an environment conducive to program personnel
actively and continuously performing effective risk management.
·
We work with your project
personnel to identify risk management and associated process shortfalls and
strengthen the process(es) to improve effectiveness (as needed).
·
We provide a
world-class risk management process tailored to your project that meets/exceeds
your expectations. This process can be
adapted by your organization on other projects, maintained by your personnel,
and will not become obsolete in the future.
·
We evaluate risk management integration with
other key processes, and work with project management and team personnel to
enhance the effectiveness of each process.
·
We provide your
project with a suitable set of risk management tools and techniques that are
state-of-the-art and can be used by project personnel without outside
assistance.
·
We work with your
project personnel to develop a tailored risk management implementation approach
that ranges from organizational ownership of the risk management process,
integration with other processes, to roles and responsibilities of key project
personnel and teams. This allows you to
better implement risk management in a resource-effective manner on your project
and also transfer appropriate portions of this approach to other projects
within your organization.
·
We work with your
project personnel to evaluate existing risks and help you prevent these risks
from becoming problems that adversely impact your project.
·
We work with your
project personnel to develop suitable risk handling plans to prevent risks from
adversely impacting the project and contingency plans in the event the risk
might occur.
How We
Helped on the NASA Hyperion Project—One Example:
Background
TRW (now
Northrop Grumman Space Technology) was asked by NASA to develop a highly
complex electrical and optical instrument for spaceflight. The previous contractor defaulted and was
about to be terminated by NASA because of poor risk management. The project was
slated for roughly 12 months total (split equally into 6 months for development
and 6 months for integration and testing) vs. more than 4 years for a normal
schedule. NASA told TRW that, if
the instrument was delivered late, it could not be used. NASA also mentioned that, unless TRW
developed and implemented a much better risk management capability, the
contract could be terminated. At the
time we started working for TRW, they were already 2 months into the 6-month
development and did not have the capability to perform comprehensive risk
management needed on this project.
Approach
We
developed and tailored a risk management process, documented the process in a
risk management plan, and delivered the plan to TRW in less than three
weeks. We developed risk management
training with inputs from the TRW Project Manager (PM) and his Deputy for
systems engineering, and rolled-out the training to the project team. We worked with the TRW PM and Deputy PM to
foster a conducive environment to perform risk management, and project
personnel to implement the process across the project. We were able to gain the trust and
professional respect of team members and helped and encouraged them to
assimilate risk management principles into their job function. We worked with TRW management and other team
members to identify, analyze, handle, and monitor risks (including conducting 5
comprehensive risk assessments during the next 6 months and helping to develop
risk handling strategies for key risks); met with TRW management, team, and
NASA leads and tracked project risks on almost a daily basis; helped develop
contingency plans as needed; and supported TRW and NASA requests for risk
management documentation and briefings that were presented to numerous high
level managers.
Outcomes
The
instrument was delivered one week ahead of schedule, on budget, and met or
exceeded all performance requirements.
TRW widely implemented the risk management process we developed for
Hyperion across its programs. NASA also
publicly told TRW and us more than once that we “saved the project!”
More Information
Would you like to receive a copy of a paper written by
us (primary author) with inputs from the TRW and NASA PMs (co-authors) that
documents how we developed and implemented the Hyperion risk management
process, and assisted TRW and NASA in the successful delivery of the Hyperion
instrument? If so, please email
us at the address at the bottom of the page (below the hyperlink box) to
request a copy of this paper. Please
provide your name, organization, and phone number in the body of the email, and
be sure to include “Requesting Hyperion Risk Management Paper” in the email
subject field. We will promptly send
you a copy of this paper for your review.
Not every risk
management enhancement will lead to such spectacular results. However, effective risk management can lead
to project success. (The converse is
also true—ineffective risk management can contribute to project failure as with
the previous instrument contractor in the Hyperion example above.) We have the broad experience and knowledge
to help you develop, tailor, and
implement risk management and improve the effectiveness of an existing process
on a wide variety of projects.
(Note: The information in the Hyperion example and
paper has been released by TRW and NASA, who have also distributed this
material. This release is an exception
to our normal business practice. We do
not discuss our work for clients, nor mention their organization, with others
to help our clients maintain the competitive advantage we provide. This is quite contrary to most risk
management consultants and companies who commonly list clients and specific
programs in their marketing material.)
Some Recent
Client Testimonials
Mission
accomplished. Great work. You made the (risk management) process
effective.
Winning Proposal Manager, multi-billion dollar program
I applaud the Risk Management training (I) just completed. Bringing in a risk expert with a supporting
text to teach risk fundamentals through a series of meetings was excellent use
of time and money. The risk foundation
laid by Dr. Conrow supplements our company’s Best Practices and provides the
basics for any employee tasked with leading or supporting risk management on a
program. Our company needs more of this
including the next level of Risk Management.
Risk Manager, major aerospace company
The (proposal) experience provided me with a first
hand appreciation of your ability to integrate into the client and proposal
team organization and show them the “how” of getting the risk management
sections done. There is a tendency to
delay risk management which frustrates the ability to manage the process during
proposal development. I think you made
great strides in recognizing the obstacles and coming up with techniques that
could enlist attention to the risk management effort.
Retired Aerospace Industry Executive and Senior Consultant
It was a pleasure to work with you. One of the best
risk management experiences that I've had on a proposal. Your templates and
guidance were much appreciated. Expectations clear. First risk leader to
acknowledge the inherent parallelism in a risk walkdown approach that I've
typically used on larger programs but found difficult to visually capture.
Thanks again.
Senior Program Manager, major aerospace company
Thanks for all of your insight. Concepts presented during each session were
immediately applicable upon return to work.
The course laid a good foundation from the basic steps of risk
management to the subtleties of working the details and watching out for the
pitfalls.
Risk Manager, multi-billion dollar program
Your experience and patience helped draw out key risk
management issues that needed to be examined on our program.
Senior Engineering Manager, major engineering corporation
The risk management training provided by Dr. Conrow
were immensely beneficial to all participants, as we all have learned a great
deal from Dr. Conrow. His class materials were based on his extensive risk
management knowledge from performing risk management on a wide variety of
programs. He taught participants with his insights, including hundreds of tips
to succeed and traps to avoid. We can directly apply what we've learned from
his classes to make virtually any risk management process more effective. Far
from using an "ivory tower" approach, he framed problems and
potential solutions in easy to understand language, and he was very helpful in
working with program personnel to implement approved changes.
Risk
Manager, multi-billion dollar program
For
Additional Information
Please call us and visit the
links below to learn more about how we can help your organization and project. We’ll provide you with 30 minutes of
consulting time at no charge to better understand your risk management concerns
and how you can increase the likelihood of delivering products within budget,
on schedule, and meeting performance requirements.
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Links to Project Risk Management Services |
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Home Page |
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Second Edition of Dr. Conrow's Risk Management Book with Reviews |
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Risk Management e-Interview with International Council on Systems Engineering |
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Links to Other Services |
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Please contact us about
these and related services tailored to your needs.
This web site owned and operated by:
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Dr. Edmund H. Conrow, CMC, CPCM, CRM, PMP |
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Reproduction or any other use of this material is prohibited without written permission. |
This
material is Copyright © 2000-2007 by Edmund H. Conrow, All Rights Reserved
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