The Writing of Polaris: Lessons in Risk Management

The seeds for this book project were sown in Atlanta, GA, in 2007 at the PMI® Global Congress.  I attended a breakout session led by Mark Kozak.  It was on lessons from the Titanic disaster.   What an intersting presentation!  

 I have always been a history buff, so the thought of bring history and project management together intrigued me.  I have been doing, consulting, and teaching project management for many years now, but I had never heard of someone using history as a method to teach project management.  As the break session continued, I became more and more interested in this concept.  I had to become part of this! 

The book stated, as many do, with a series of starts and stops.  Work, life, and grandkids kept slowing me down.  But the real issue was me.  I wanted a successful project that illustrated proper risk management.  I wanted the topic of the book to be risk management – my other passion.  I have always felt that risk management was one area in project management that is frequently misunderstood; therefore, it is not done as often or as well as it should be. 
 

Additionally, I had a few other criteria for the project.  This project had to be well known, so that everyone could relate to it.   Obscure projects may not make for good examples.  The project had to have created something great.  And it had to have been done the right way.   I did not want to do a book on a project that simply got lucky.  

 
I spent a considerable portion of my life stationed on submarines.  I was actually stationed on two submarines as a nuclear reactor operator.  Frequently I still have dreams (nightmares) about those days.  Through one of these dreams, I realized I had just such a project: Polaris.   The Polaris Project/Program was a U.S. Navy project to design, built, and place on submarines - nuclear ballistic missiles.  

Polaris was started in the mid 1950’s.  In the United States at the time, there was a concern that the Soviet Union would surpass the United States in a number of critical technological, scientific, and military areas.  From this concern, it was determined a new weapons system needed to be developed that could not be knocked out by a nuclear first strike from the Soviet Union.  Hence, Polaris was started.   It progressed quite slowly at first. 
 

Polaris had a few challenges to be overcome in order for it to be successful.   For one, no such missile capable of meeting the necessary requirements existed.  Some wondered if such a missile was even possible.   Second, no submarine had been designed to carry such a large missile if such a missile was possible.  Third, no launch system existed capable of firing such a missile from a submerged submarine.  Forth, no guidance system existed to guide such a missile to the target.  Such a missile needed to fly thousands of miles to the target.  No accurate guidance system existed at the time. 

Needless to say, there were more than a few critical risks in this project.  That made this topic so interesting to me.  How did the project overcome these obstacles? How did they manage these risks?
 

Polaris got its reality check when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. Sputnik was the first artificial satellite launched into orbit in world history.  All of a sudden this concern about the Soviet Union turned into fear and a bit of humiliation for the United States.  The Soviet Union had one upped the United States.   The Polaris Project now needed to progress much, much faster.

This book looks at the Polaris Project through the eyes of modern day risk management using modern day risk management techniques.  In this way, I attempt to demonstrate the effective use of risk management in the modern world.  As seen by the recent Great Recession, risk management today could use some help.   I believe much of this is because risk management is seen as a difficult concept to master.  Proper application of risk management techniques on a project increases the likelihood of meeting schedule and cost constraints.  This, in turn, usually leads to more successful projects.  Polaris was a perfect example of just this! 
 

Many of today’s modern risk management techniques actually got their start on the Polaris Project.  One such is the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT).  PERT was instrumental in guiding this project to success.  Once Sputnik was launched, it was clear a method was needed to assist in enabling a successful completion of this project. 
PERT and effective risk management techniques assisted the Polaris Project in becoming one of the best ran programs in the United States Department of Defense history.  The Polaris Project overcame all of its technical risks and amazingly enough finished three years ahead of schedule. 

 
Unfortunately, this project never really got its due respect for what it accomplished.  That was also a major driving force in my selection of this project as the topic for the book. The project was overshadowed by the Mercury, Gemini, and the Apollo space programs.  These other programs led to man’s landing on the moon.  An incredible achievement in and of itself!  However, submarines based on refinements of the original Polaris design still prowl the seas whereas we have not been to the moon in almost 40 years.