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Monthly Success: 84
Total of 7787 in 3 year |
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Professional Colum |
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| Subject |
What a project manager can do in a disaster rescue operation? |
| Writer |
Roger Chou |
| Contents |
A major earthquake has struck Haiti, and every day we hear news reports of the disaster relief’s progress. This reminded me, 5 months ago, of our disaster relief operation in response to the Typhoon Morakot.
From a personal experience, it is my opinion that whilst disasters may differ in scope and type, there are many different aspects in a disaster response, where the rescue, relief and reconstruction operations benefit greatly from proper project management skills and techniques.
Generally speaking, there are three stages of a disaster response: the ‘golden 72 hours’, taking care of survivors and reconstruction work
1. The ‘Golden 72 Hours’
The first 72 hours of any disaster relief effort are the most important for saving life. During this time, if people with serious and life-threatening injuries are kept alive with little or no basic first aid, or, if people are trapped without food or water and even have to do without shelter or sanitation – if they are reached by rescue workers in this time, their lives can be saved. It is also when information management is most vital in aiding any rescue work.
The first thing you have to be prepared for – is when first entering a disaster-hit area. People are crying, confused, scared. They will be begging or demanding rescue workers help them and their families or friends. They may be desperately searching for loved ones – communications within the disaster area may be severely damaged, if not destroyed. With many news channels and newspapers prone to sensationalism in order to increase their viewing or circulation figures, their reports have the potential to generate negative impressions about how the rescue operation is progressing. This has the potential to put pressure on the disaster operation’s direction which is not necessarily for the best of the victims, and, make victims feel even more vulnerable and desperate.
Take Taiwan’s Typhoon Morakot rescue work as an example. There were so many negative reports that the rescue team’s work was complicated by the government’s reaction to public pressure, leading to the Cabinet resigning en masse. This actually prolonged the rescue work, because the new Cabinet needed additional time to organize their response to the disaster. From my observation, most governments rarely understand disaster response information management, failing to properly organize and co-ordinate everyone needed for the rescue work, quickly identifying what has happened, what is the most appropriate course of action, and who should be responsible for these actions. You need to have an information management system ready that is flexible, that can quickly assess a situation, and then can give clear guidance on how best to use available resources at that moment.
2. Taking Care of Survivors
After 72 hours, the focus of the entire disaster relief operation should shift from rescuing lives, to organizing relief, helping surviving victims to get proper medical care and establishing temporary shelters. At same time, re-establishing the transport infrastructure, and then establishing aid distribution, takes an equal priority in ensuring the constant delivery of food, medical supplies and, increasingly, building materials. In order to ensure the long-term survival people, re-establishing proper sanitation and un-polluted water delivery is very important, and this should be the total focus. Dead bodies in the water and broken pipes, if not quickly dealt with, could lead to outbreaks of disease later. This is when we put all our best project management knowledge into practice, that whilst we deal with the immediate problems of the disaster we will also then start to evaluate and establish reconstruction guidelines, including housing reconstruction, reconstruction of local education, reconstruction of architectural heritage, industry and transportation reconstruction, environmental protection, unemployed survivors support, and re-establishing normal goods and material distribution.
Vital to managing this possibly problematic shift from the urgency of ‘life-saving’ to routine of ‘life-sustaining’ is efficient communication, something we strive for in our best project management, but which matters even more in the midst of the difficulty of disaster relief and reconstruction work.
Based on my own experience, the participation of certified project managers, with their shared language and knowledge of project management skills and practices, enables the quick establishment of effective guidelines and procedures. Also, as it is time to begin reconstruction planning, because of the shared knowledge and skills – our project managers are very aware of the different categories of risks, such as residue risks, secondary risks, of risk triggers, as well as the procedures for quality assurance and quality control. This means the entire response can be more efficiently guided and the transition to reconstruction managed smoothly, with the least stress and discomfort to the victims.
3. Reconstruction Work
One or two months after the disaster, when all the cleaning work is almost done, it is now time to advance the reconstruction work from initial planning toward actual construction. It is when the execution methodology of project management will work best.
In the post-disaster period, the need will be for the authoritative use of project management skills and practices to ensure that construction will be carried out quickly and efficiently. Minimal delays in returning the people to their pre-disaster life now rest with what all professional project managers are good at: resource allocation, time and budget management.
Based on my experiences, and what I have observed, professional project managers who are full of enthusiasm and equipped with professional knowledge, can produce a tangible contribution to society during such difficult times.
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