Have you seen my bulldozer?

Background:

Jill is a project manager at a mining company working on an open-pit mine project. Currently, she is working on a major deliverablebuilding a 3-mile road to the new mine site. The first phase of the road (1.3 miles) has just been finished, which the company considers a major accomplishment. The company has decided to hold an event to recognize the completion of this first major deliverable and to symbolically initiate phase two of building the road. The company has invited members of the senior leadership team; local, state, and federal elected officials; and members of key regulatory agencies and the local media to participate in this event. The organizers have decided that instead of a traditional ribbon cutting for initiating the next phase, they will have their Cat D11T bulldozer drive through the ribbon, breaking ground for phase 2.

Current Issue(s):

Jill couldn't be happier about completing phase 1 of the road. The most difficult phase is behind her, and the celebratory event has gone very well. All the "bigwigs" gave their congratulatory speeches and everyone is watching the bulldozer drive through the ribbon. Jill turns to speak with the project sponsor for a couple minutes, when she hears a member of the project team screaming, "The dozer is sinking! The dozer is sinking!" Uncertain if she has correctly understood her teammate, she turns and watches in frozen horror as the bulldozer steadily continues to sink into the ground. The driver is desperately trying to free the dozer, but this only seems to be quickening the decline. Within six minutes, the dozer has completely disappeared from sight.

After the initial shock has passed, Jill begins trying to answer a few specific questions:

1. What happened to the bulldozer, and how do we retrieve it?
2. How did this happen?
3. How could this have been avoided?
4. How can we mitigate the impact on the project?

After some initial work, Jill discovers the following answers to some of her questions:

1. What happened to the bulldozer, and how do we retrieve it? It drove onto an unidentified/unmarked muskeg pocket (bog/quicksand). The crust covering the pocket cracked under the weight of the dozer, and it sank into the pocket, completely out of sight. A few different methods were attempted to retrieve the dozer, which was 50% self-insured by the company:

• Sonar was attempted, but could not pinpoint the location of the dozer given all the other solid objects in the muskeg pocket.
• Drag lines using a concrete pylon were attempted, but they did not locate the dozer.
• The company sought permission to drain the pocket, but the environmental agency denied permission.

1. How did this happen? Jill knew that this was addressed in the risk management plan and that the quality plan addressed the possibility as well. After questioning the lead geological engineer, Jill learned that soil samples had in fact been taken every 10th of a mile per the project plan, but that the lead geological engineer had not actually performed the core test on the samples, as he had completed a flyover of the landscape at the initiation of the project in the company helicopter and believed the terrain to be stable.

Case Analysis Prompts:

After considering the case study above and the information provided, please discuss the following questions:

1. What should Jill do now?
2. Did Jill do what was reasonable to manage this risk? What else could she have done?
3. What might be the short-term and long-term impact on the project, and how can it be mitigated?
4. Do you believe there is a difference between how companies tend to manage risks and quality on internal versus external projects (internal versus external clients)?
5. How does one learn to integrate project risk and quality processes most often? Is this sufficient?