Chapter 14
Developing PUMP capability as a project
All men are equal – all men, that is to say, who possess umbrellas.
—E.M. Forster
Thus far this book has been largely about how to achieve effective and efficient uncertainty management in the context of a single project. From Part I onwards we have argued for the use of a PUMP pack for all individual projects. Part II discussed what is involved in each phase of the basic PUMP in the E&D shaping stage of the nominal lifecycle framework. Part III considered modifications to the content of each PUMP pack member when applied in other project lifecycle stages. However, important corporate implications of this kind of approach to uncertainty management that have not been addressed need attention now.
In this chapter we consider what is involved in establishing and sustaining appropriate project uncertainty management capability for an organization. The issues involved can be explored more systematically if we consider the establishment and operation of this capability as a project in its own right, and examine this project in terms of the seven Ws framework plus the project (asset/change) lifecycle framework of Chapter 1. This approach shapes the structure of this chapter.
As noted in Chapter 6, the application of a PUMP to a given project can be a high risk project in its own right, warranting particular attention to the process ‘who’ question in the focus phase of the PUMP. The process of instituting formal project uncertainty management ...
