Managing Katrina: What Would You Have Done?

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Managing Katrina: What Would You Have Done?

Bob Weinstein

September 28, 2005





What would an experienced PM have done if he or she were director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on August 29, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans? Eric A. Spanitz, president of Synergest, Inc., a management consulting and training company in Chicago, thinks he knows the answer. Spanitz is also a professor at Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, where he developed and teaches a project-management curriculum.

By now, it’s no secret that strong management controls should have been in place before the Katrina disaster, and that former FEMA director Michael Brown and other federal, state and local officials botched their jobs. Many projects resulting from Katrina suffered from a lack of professional project management, according to Spanitz. One of the golden rules of project management is to have defined and measurable goals.



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