CRISIS JUNKIES (a.k.a. HEROES)

A Business Week article online (http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/feb2005/ca20050224_1390_ca010.html) about 'crisis junkies' - people that only function well when there is a real or perceived crisis - caught my eye as project management is rife with such individuals. In some organizations where the business processes move only my lurching frm crisis to crisis, people of this mindset are necessary. However, in most cases, the crisis junkie (CJ) actually does more harm than good to an organization - particularly to projects.

There are numerous problems with people like this and particularly with organizations that tolerate the behaviors. First, project management is discipline that is process-driven, which flies in the face of heroes and CJs because they manage in the moment as crises appear. Since they feed off of unstructured, improvised responses to events, any form of process or authority that doesn't help them meet their objectives is cast aside. Worse, it is very difficult to measure, much less control, responses like this from a PM or even general management perspective.

The next problem deals with sustainability - even CJs get fatigued, and usually their project teams fare much worse over time. We only have so much energy and adrenalin in our bodies and when a continuing crisis-mode loses its luster, project productivity falls as the crisis drags on or is replaced by a fresh set of 'critical' demands to be fulfilled on an urgent basis.

Now lets move on to results - CJs can (and usually do) deliver results in response to the current crisis, but with a caveat - the underlying issues and root causes are almost never addressed and corrected. In the mind of a CJ, there's never any time for that, and in retrospect it takes away the major catalyst for acting in crisis-mode. All project management methodologies are designed to have some form of predictibility built-in for outcomes, and crisis-mode managing is exactly opposite of that.

Finally, PM methodologies address accountability as a key feature of their processes. CJs generally don't have a problem with accountability, as long as they are accountable only for quick results and 'saving the day' as often as possible on high-profile problems and issues. This behavior is narcassistic and only serves the CJ, not the project and definitely not the organization.

Projects managed in continual crisis-mode have very high rates of failure to deliver, and at best, cost the organization dearly in terms of money and team/employee relations. If you operate in this mode frequently or your organization tolerates this behavior routinely, its time to take a long hard look at the way projects (and probably operations) are managed in the organization.