Directly from the PMI EF Disaster Recovery Workshop in Alexandria - USA

In this podcast, Ricardo talks directly from Alexandria, USA, about the PMI Educational Foundation Disaster Recovery Workshop. The workshop brought together experts from around the world to discuss the application of project management in disaster and reconstructions events.

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Episode transcript

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five minutes PMI podcast. Today Directly from election Drea in us and from the PMI Educational Foundation Disaster Recovery Workshop. I had the privilege and the owner to be part of a very selected team to discuss how project management can support and can help on the disaster recovery process. So all of us, we are very much alternate about when we see a, be a huge disasters like earthquakes in Haiti, or like the tsunami in Southeast Asia.

And then as a project manager, we need to think, okay, what we can do in our capacity to improve that. So this was the route of what we discuss it on this workshop. And we started discussing, okay, what is the Disaster? And the polymeric started Xactly from there. What is a disaster? What is really a disaster and what makes a Disaster something different from an wizard or from an accident? So we define it ourselves. So I don't want to stick with redefining concepts, but what is basically a disaster, a disaster.

It is the result of in the event that, of course, in which an entity cannot recover on its own. So you need, it's something that happens that you need external support, that your current capacity cannot solve the problem. You need to have external support. And this could be in a country. This could be in a state in a, in a specific state, but you need to have external. And then we started discussing a lot about, okay, so what is the process?

So traditionally the process is basically four steps. You have the preparation and then you have the Disaster, then you have the leave or Recovery reconstruction and then preparation. So if you, you can make a circle and put your item's, you put preparation, relief, recovery, and reconstruction. I don't want to also to stick on this terms, this is not an, a standard, but what we discuss it is that the relief comes with a quite interesting aspect.

Cause they're is a very strong emotional appeal. That is an extremely strong media coverage. So there is a very strict motivation to support on the relief. So everybody wants to jump in. Everybody wants to donate things. Everybody wants to support. So when we go back to the tsunami, when we go back to Katrina, when we go back to hate, we saw this in a fairly deep and very intense from all over the society.

So everybody at once to support this, then master that we have the Recovery it's its how we can build shelters, how we can build the basic infrastructure for people to continue living. And then there is the major aspect of the work. Okay. We need to reconstruct everything and we need to reconstruct thinking and becoming ready and work in a preventive way. Okay. And also there is a huge opportunity for renovation. One of our friends there, the Victor he shared with us, he is experiencing in Japan with the, to Nemi relief and he drew a line, outstanding graphic.

He said, OK, we have an evolution. And where then when a draw, a line, okay, go in the lap. And then when there is a Disaster, there is a break on this continuous improvement. So then you lose some of the infrastructure you have. But the, so if you look at this is also an opportunity for renovate, wait, maybe you will not rebuild it in the same place and the same way, because maybe this will occur you to do the same Disaster in the future again. So how do we, you can turn this off to a renovation process where you can not only Recovery, but you can also have a benefit of future benefits on this process.

So we have a very nice discussions about this and how project management can play a role on that. It's very important. As a project manager, we cannot solve all the problems related to the disaster recovery. Our entities auto skills are also required the political skills and all the interface with governments, but maybe this is not the render where the project managers should be in back to. We can contribute deeply in two main things, indirect construction and the preparation in way, because probably the relief.

We do have a lot of knowledge. We have a lot of studies in a lot of NGOs are a lot of organizations that can fulfill this, but how we can use our project manager meant skills to help, to help organizations, to help States, to be more prepared, how we can design things, prepare for disasters, how we can do a better risk management and in the reconstruction it sells what made a role because reconstruction steaks long time, what is struggling is a required a huge amount of funds and reconstruction doesn't have the same appeal of the relief.

So we need to break the very bad chain off relief, recover disaster relief, recovery Disaster because Dan is, you never go into an, an improvement process and improvement process. We'll go through the reconstruction and the preparation. And I think that this to area's, the project manager's can play a deeper role. So I'm very happy of being part of this because when you think about project management, its not only make companies to create more money and to receive more profits, but also it's very deep and good way of spreading the good through the word and helping on this disaster recovery environment.

It's something that will leverage project management professional to an upper level. So let's think about that and see you next week with another five minutes PM. Podcast.

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