Every once in a while I do an experiment. I pull out a newspaper and check out the headlines. I count the number of them that deal with VUCA or Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, or Ambiguity or another way to say deal with risk.
So, I pulled out the January 26, 2013 NY Times Business Section. These are the articles on the page B1:
ASQ recently had a good/great piece on risk management called: “Managing Risk in a Volatile Economy.”
What was interesting about it?
Volatility or we what we call VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) is here to stay. We are seeing in it in the economy, safety, stock market, weather, work, and in all areas.
Carnival may be the biggest and may have been the best cruise line in the world – until this week.
What were they thinking?
What happened to the ship? Well, one of their ships had a engine room fire. OK! It was contained. The ship however had limited power and plumbing. The ship listed. Thousands of folks could do the basics such as go to the bathroom or eat properly. And it took five days to solve the problem by bringing the ship into port and unloading the passengers.
The resulting reporting and publicity was BAD. This was the #1 story this week in the news until meteor hit Russia. The President of Carnival Cruise Lines said: “clearly we failed in this particular case.”
Didn’t they have a Plan B, contingency plan or a business continuity plan? Whatever you call it for a ‘what if’ contingency.
I bet next time, they will be better prepared.
Bio:
Greg Hutchins PE and CERM (503.233.101 & GregH@QualityPlusEngineering.com) is the founder of:
CERMAcademy.com
800Compete.com
QualityPlusEngineering.com
WorkingIt.com
He is the evangelist behind Future of Quality: Risk®. He is currently working on the Future of Work and machine learning projects.
He is a frequent speaker and expert on Supply Chain Risk Management and cyber security. His current books available on all platform are shown below:
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