I'm sure most of you would have followed the Chile miners' rescue story... I was particularly interested in that story from the project management perspective. A great amount of precise planning, co-ordination, leadership and teamwork was at play, all of which was imperative to make this project a success. There are loads of lessons learnt from this project ... I wanted to cover one lesson in particular, namely "the contingency planning". I won't go into the technical details as can't claim I know much about mining or mning rescue, however what was interesting about it is that 1) there not only was a Plan B .... and a Plan C (for getting access to the miners so they could be pulled out), but all three plans were executed at the same time; 2) Plan B failed in the early stages but rather than being abandoned, it was adjusted and reinstated and in fact it was Plan B that worked in the end! So, what are the lessons leart?
Lesson 1: Do have a contingency plan - ALWAYS!
Lesson 2: If possible, and taken into account the cost/benefit trade-off, initiate the back up plan in parallel to the main plan, or have everything set up so that Plan B (or C or D) can kick in as soon as the main plan fails, or even better as soon as it is identified that failure is imminent
Lesson 3: Never Give Up!
