Crisis Management & Business Continuity / MASY1-GC 3615-200

Kelly McKinney, Adjunct Instructor | [email protected]

Description of Assignment5: Project Canvas

Due prior to Class #6

“It’s not enough to do a lot of things quickly. We must be able to do everything all at once”

Background

The crisis is deliberate and methodical. It bides its time, gathering strength and power, and building its unique chaotic mix. And, at just the right moment, it unleashes its most fearsome weapon, an avalanche of impacts we call surge. Everything happens at once—everything, that is, except what we want to happen

Extreme Project Management

To counter this, it’s not enough for us to do a lot of things at the same time. Human needs cannot wait, so we have to be able to do everything all at once. We call that multi-tasking, or extreme project management

Luckily you have a process and tools that you put into place long ago and practice long before the crisis so you have the muscle memory to execute. And get you started down the road of doing everything all at once

Project Canvas

The project canvas is a tool that enables your emergency operations. It allows you to execute many big and critically important things all at the same time

First you must gather your team. That is your team, your mechanism; your greatest tool. The mechanism is an incident organization. Convened by you. In the crisis business we call it a “task-based organization” because it is unique. It is convened for a specific incident and doesn’t exist after that incident is over.

And you use that team to help you to list all of the things that need to be done, who will do them, when they will be completed and where you will get all of the stuff you will need to make it happen

Template

A template project canvas is attached to this assignment sheet that includes the three domains made up of three building blocks each.

· These are the fundamental questions that must be answered by the crisis team

1. Foundation: Why are we doing it? How much will it cost? What benefits will it bring?

2. People: Who will be accountable for it? Who will benefit from it? Who will manage it?

3. Creation: What will it deliver? How and when will the work be done? How are we going to engage stakeholders?

Assignment