Questioning 2010 success

The success of South Africas 2010 World Cup effort depends on the quality, honesty and scope of the questions we ask ahead of the event - questions that we may not yet have given sufficient thought to.

According to Paul Skivington, Executive Leader - Strategic Risk Consulting at Alexander Forbes Risk Services, major infrastructural planning and co-ordination exercises like the Olympics, World Cup and Commonwealth Games all kick off with a few fundamental, and very critical, questions.

"And the biggest single question that South Africa needs to ask at the outset of this project is how South Africas national 2010 policy is empowering provincial government, municipalities, businesses and individuals to fill the softer service gaps that lie between building buildings and hosting people. 

"Before South Africa lays its first brick, we need to ask the kind of questions that will help us establish the requirements of the 2010 project. To understand what these questions should be we need to begin a dialogue in which we interrogate all the risks and opportunities 2010 presents for South Africa".

These questions need to be asked, continues Skivington, "not because this is an African event and global Afro-pessimism has already decided that Africa will fail, but because every successful event of this nature would have begun with the same kind of interrogation. One only has to look at the disaster of the Wembley stadium project in London to know that poor planning and failure to properly interrogate risk are not exclusive to Africa". 

For 20 years Skivington has interrogated the risk associated with major construction and development projects around the world.

He believes, "The fundamentals of sound project development, no matter how large or complex, begin with asking, 'what can go wrong?'.

"None of this is rocket science. For example, a simple question like: what will we do if we have thousands of visitors in Johannesburg, many of whom speak little or no English, all looking for accommodation, and trying to catch buses and taxi's to Ellis park? Infrastructural plans aside, what plans are in place to cater for the needs of people who do not speak English?".

Skivington believes that, "this type of question, and others like it, were asked in Sydney before the 2000 Olympics, in Germany before the 2005 World Cup, and in every other country that has hosted a global mega event of this nature.

Other critical questions, and many more like them, that we should be asking now include:

'What if there is a massive power failure in Cape Town just before a critical match?'

'What if the computers go down at O R Tambo airport the week all the fans are arriving for the World Cup?'

'What if there is a global outbreak of Avian Flu and no one comes to SA, or there is a mad scramble to get out?'

'What if there is a major terrorist attack on Western visitors attending the World Cup in Cape Town?

Asking questions like these is not about panic-mongering or Afro-pessimism but form the basis of Realistic Disaster Scenario (RDS) planning. And RDS is the critical first step in any integrated project development plan".

The basic built infrastructure needs to be viewed as a 'given' or 'easy first step'. The real challenge, and where the risk lies, is in getting all the physical parts of South Africas 2010 effort co-ordinated into a smoothly functioning system that delivers a memorable experience to real people.

Achieving this will put South Africa and Africa on the map, and usher in a new age of Afro-confidence with all its attendant benefits. Not achieving this will be a catastrophe at a time at which Africa can ill afford to re-enforce an already poor image.

Skivington adds that, "the idea behind this process is not to say 'We cannot succeed', but rather 'We can succeed, and we can say so with confidence because we have thought through all the scenarios and we have answers for all the problems!'.

"this process will also throw up as many opportunities for the country as problems. So it is not all about the negative side. We should be asking 'what is the risk if we do not take this opportunity?' just as often as 'what is the risk if we do?'."

In Skivington's experience, organisations are often reluctant to ask the awkward 'what if?' questions. "Organisations often don't see the benefit of preparing for things that they think are unlikely to happen. When things do go wrong, however, having identified the risks and having prepared appropriate strategies makes the difference between successful project management and disaster.