Volume IV - Issue VIII - August 2007

Student Papers

 

“Houston, we have a problem!”
The Use of KT Processes in Effective Project Management

By John Tiso - Graduate Student, Harvard University

 “Houston, we have a problem”. Although this phrase is ubiquitous, few understand its origination. In the 1950’s, while working for the famous think tank, the Rand Corporation, social scientists Charles Kepner and Benjamin Tregoe started the development of their ‘rational processes’. These four processes have been used to define and have been subsequently refined to support the decision making power of today’s managers. A key function of the KT rational processes is that they facilitate the removal of emotion in management decisions. So, the famous Apollo 13 saying is actually a Kepner-Tregoe (KT) Situation Appraisal statement.

Why would a project manager need rational processes? “For example, although the United States spent over $250 billion each year on IT application development projects, 31 percent of these projects were cancelled before completion. Almost 53 percent were completed, but they were over budget and over schedule and did not meet the original specifications” (Marchewka, 2006, p. 5).  Staggering figures such as these indicate that we, as IT project managers, need rational process to analyze all phases of projects, as well as potential problems in the projects and programs we manage.

 

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About the Author:
John Tiso

John Tiso
Graduate Student
Harvard University

John Tiso is a senior engineer in the Cisco Technical Assistance center (TAC). He is currently the speaker for the Cisco Networkers troubleshooting IPCC Express seminar and the Contact Center troubleshooting seminar at the CIPTUG conference. He has served as an Expert on the “Ask the Experts” for Cisco’s Netpro Forum. Mr. Tiso is a published author and serves as a technical editor for Cisco Press. He is also CCIE certified #5162. Prior to Cisco, he architected and managed large scale technology deployments. He is currently enrolled part-time in graduate studies at Harvard University.

 

 

 

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