Happy Chinese New Year!
There have been lots of stories recently about the bad weather in China and its impact on people and the economy during the Spring Festival. It’s billed as the biggest mass movement of people in the world in which 100’s of millions of people take to the roads, rails, and airways. It’s the center of the annual cycle for people and businesses. Our company’s all hands annual meeting is the 1st day after the holiday and culminates with a dinner and live performances. The performances, all planned and performed by the employees, are 1st class and it’s easy to understate the effort which goes into these events. There are judges and intense competition for the prizes which are usually just a few dollars but with immense prestige at stake. Both the weather and Spring Festival are major project management events.
On the weather I see that a number of officials have admitted that preparations for the heavy snows and freezing temperatures were not adequate. But then, at least in Hangzhou, you can’t really blame them. This was the largest snowfall since they first started recording this data. I suppose in the Risk Management Plan there may have been a contingency plan. In some ways the contingency plan was adequate. The next morning many companies simply sent the entire workforce out into the street with brooms, shovels, sticks with boards attached to the ends, waste baskets and more. The brigades made short work of the snow. A small army of people descended on the No. 1 bridge across the Qiantang River and in 30 minutes had thrown tons of the stuff into the river and traffic was flowing.
So our company motto for 2008 is “Er ling ling ba, Xin de chu fa” (it rhymes) and means “2008- A New Start!” For project management we’re planning to formalize the beta PM course we ran a trial of in the Fall and also hold monthly Project Management Forums. Our topic for the first month is Risk Management.
I’m wondering if anyone else does PM forums and has suggestions to offer that will contribute to success.