Packer Telecom Essay

This case talked about risk management. As a telecom company with high-speed development, Packer Telecom decided to use risk management to protect and promote itself. It wanted to not only enlarge market share but also reduced budget at the same time. The project manager developed a risk management template based on the risk management plans other companies used in the past. He tried to persuade the sponsor that the template would work well at Packer Telecom, but the sponsor had not totally agreed about this. For me, the telecom industry was in a state of turmoil and rapid advance. On this occasion, seeking to change by using risk management would be a great way for Packer to take the lead. Risk management would be a good part to improve efficiency and reduce cost. They could get better control over the future, if they did risk management right. The project manager did not do it right. To identify, assess, response, and control the risks, the risk management plan should change with the situation of company and time. I highly doubt that if there are best practices or template for the risk management. To make a good risk management, knowing what the company will face is the first thing to do. The project manager built the template only because other companies were using or used it. He gave so much credence to his work that he did not considered about the real situation of his company. After all, even though his template would work, using it for all the projects at once was still not a good idea. It might or might not fix all the projects, and they should not put all their eggs in one basket. I thought the sponsor knew risk management and project management better than the manager. He asked some serious questions and did not agree with the manager from beginning to end. I hoped he could make the right decision and found a better project manager later. What they should do now is making a risk management group, might be a new department. They could count on one project manager to do all the risk management work. That template might help them to finish the job, it should be changed based on each project or case. The risk management should be used at the new projects at first. It would help to cut down some high risk projects or cases. At the same time, the employees in the Packer should be trained to understand the risk management. This is the right way to make it become a company culture.