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Posts Tagged ‘Jeddah crisis’

Jeddah and Ombrophobia

09 Nov

Image via: David Castillo Dominici/freedigitalphotos.net

If you are a Jeddah resident, there is a huge chance that you already have it, and no one can actually blame you! it is Ombrophobia; the fear of rain or of being rained on. Now with the start of the winter season, the experiences and images of the last two years are descending and haunting the hearts and minds of Jeddawies (residents of Jeddah).

According to this piece of news, 94% of  Jeddah residents (a sample of more than 4000) are expecting heavy rain this year and somehow expecting a repetition of the last two years crises! Keeping in mind the limitations and flaws of such online survey, the percentage is still high! Maybe the problem is that there is no clear communication about the progress of the different projects in the city, or maybe Jeddawies are no longer trusting officials statements!

No one at this stage can claim that he can predict what will happen if rain start falling tomorrow. Jeddah is now like a patient where many doctors are operating on on the same time. Several and different projects are taking place at once. There is not a major road in the city where there is no project of some sort is taking place. It feels that what we forgot to do in the last 30 years, we are aspiring to accomplish here and now!

In all cases, Jeddaweis will definitely develop some kind of OCD (Obsessive–compulsive disorder) these coming days following up weather channels and news and waiting for the ultimate test of the success of all these projects; a test I hope the city will successfully pass!!

* Image Source

 
2 Comments

Posted in Project Management, Saudi business

 

Jeddah Crisis and Disaster Management Center

17 Aug

via saudigazette.com.sa

It is like a beehive in Jeddah these days; it is occupied, literally, with so many projects. New roads, Corniche renovation, and most importantly, rains and floods control projects.
What have been expected since the first Jeddah disaster in 2009 is finally here; a crisis and disaster management center (CDMC- my abbreviation!).

Although it will unfortunately miss the upcoming rain season, the contract to construct the new CDMC has just been signed by Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Emir of Makkah region, last Monday. The project will go through two phases; the first was the one just signed and will cost SAR 49.85 million.

As I said earlier, such action was anticipated, if not demanded. The center is supposed to eventually enhance the communication between the different involved parties in order to mitigate losses of time and efforts and to eliminate any impediments that may occur because of bureaucracy. We have all seen the chaos during the second disaster!

These are some of the features of the CDMC:

-         450 square-meters center and to be located within the Makkah Emirate building in Jeddah.

-         First phase to be completed within 152 days from the date of signing the contract.

-         Linking about 25 civil and military sectors to the center.

-         Merging radio facilities used by all involved parties.

-         The ability to receive live video feeds from up to four helicopters.

-         Installing 150 monitoring cameras in different parts of Jeddah and linking them through microwave.

A certainly good step in the right direction …

 
6 Comments

Posted in General Management, Project Management, Saudi business

 

The Woman who Inaugurated Jeddah Projects

17 May

The school principal and the mother of four, Mrs. Al Touariki, is the first Saudi woman ever to inaugurate a public project in the whole Kingdom!  This is the piece of news that filled all the Saudi media outlets during the past couple of days. What is the project, you may ask; it is one of the projects that promised to protect the city of Jeddah of any possible floods in the coming years.

It is most certainly a good news for all those concerned about this dreamy city named Jeddah. It is a message that the wheel did not stop, and there are still sincere efforts to realize the promises that were given after the second flood hit the city few months ago.

Let’s go back to Mrs. Al Touariki because her presence in the inauguration is one of the most clever PR and marketing moves that I have witnessed recently!

For those who do not know her story, she is the woman who stopped Prince Khalid Al Faisal, the governor of Makkah province, and openly complained about the disastrous state of the infrastructure of her area and the whole city in general. That move during the Prince visit to her area after the floods was circulated by the media as nothing less of a tale of bravery from her side and a story of a great humbleness from the Prince side, and both are true up to some extent.

The decision of asking her to be part of the inauguration is cleaver because it somehow gives the project both a human face and credibility. She has been presented before as the voice of Jeddawies (people of Jeddah), she has been turned into a symbol that keeps reminding us of the event and its aftermath, and in marketing, symbols are considered of a great value!

People could get skeptical about the efficiency of these projects, they have witnessed broken promises before, they have been through the disaster twice already. So to contain all this, let’s bring the symbol to witness the realization of her dreams of a safe house and city, let her represents the city inhabitants and make them feel that they are there themselves, her presence spreads sincerity, we would not bring her if it was for nothing you know!

I think the message was well received by the audience, which means it was both smart and successful. Now let’s sit back and watch the implementation, this is the most important part!

 
2 Comments

Posted in Communication, Marketing, Public Relations, Saudi business

 

Aramco, again?!

17 Feb

If you follow up on Jeddah and its ‘missions impossible’ projects, you must have heard by now that Aramco, the national oil company, has been brought in to help managing the draining and sewage projects in the city (here)!

We certainly hope that it will succeed in its mission, the city of Jeddah and its people are desperate for any little spark of hope!

But I have to say that I am bit, a tiny bit, restless about this news!

It seems that it is turning into a habit to bring in Aramco whenever the government is facing challenging projects. The expertise and reputation of Aramco as a company that has a powerful and effective project management practice and supporting culture seem to be always the last resort of the Saudi government. They have been asked to look after the construction of KAUST, followed by the supervision of the King Abadullah sports city also in Jeddah.

Let’s try to throw some points around here:

  • Given that Aramco is, in a way or another, a governmental organization, a one may wonder, why is it orbiting in another galaxy when compared to the remaining public organizations? Yes, I do agree that the culture of disciplined professionalism of the organization is rooted in the history of its origin, the question stands still, how come no body thought of transferring its experience and practices to other organizations?? Why no body thought of copying its recruiting and training practices so we could eventually have Aramco in each and every public organizations??!!
  • Stripping some organizations the right to carry on their projects and bring Aramco instead is a clear declaration of incompetency of those organizations! For example, whether Jeddah Municipality likes it or not, the message is clear and simple, they are not entrusted with this project?!! So again, back to the first point, why? Aren’t they both Saudi public organizations?
  • The last point is direct, if the managers of a certain organization are not performing well and cannot be even entrusted with projects in their own field of responsibility, why keeping them? If they cannot be trained or developed, then there is no escape from the inevitable, they should be sacked!

 
4 Comments

Posted in General Management, Project Management, Saudi business

 

The Poor City Named Jeddah

27 Jan

Once upon a time, there was a city that its people loved to call it the ‘Bride of the Red Sea,’ a name it deserves no more.

Almost a year ago, Jeddah had woken up on a surprise, a deadly surprise to be more precise. The second largest city in the biggest oil exporter in the world had woken up to find itself drowning in two hours rain water. You’ve read it right, the second largest city in the biggest oil exporter could not handle two hours of rain!!

Notice that I said a year ago …

Today, the same city, yes, the same second largest city in the biggest oil exporter has woken up on the exactly same deadly surprise; it has drown in rain water, once again!!

For a whole year nothing happened, nothing changed!! After absorbing the shock of the last year surprise, and after the game of pointing fingers started and died because of the special commission formed to investigate the floods, I say after all that, not a single solution has been implemented to safe this poor city of its doomed relationship with rain! I cannot go as far and say a creative solution, I am sure ‘creative’ is a big word for Jeddah officials, they might need to check it up in a dictionary or something, not even a dumb solution has been implemented in this poor city.

There is nothing to say really; go ahead and have a glimpse in these photos from Arab News, or watch the below videos and get scared, or even go and read my last year posts about the same subject to see how we never learned from that disaster (here, here & here).

In all cases, pray for Jeddah people, pray for the used to be bride, pray for us … we need it!!

 
15 Comments

Posted in General Management, Project Management, Saudi business

 

Jeddah Investigation Committee Website

09 Dec

The special committee investigating the Jeddah flood has launched a web site to provide its latest news and, most importantly, to give the chance to public to report any information that might be related to the ongoing investigation.

I have to say that I find this move unprecedented in the Saudi government work. Simply, it is a public relation kind of moves. In such cases, the website will act as an official source of news and announcements coming out of the committee. Also, the move reassures the public and delivers the message that ‘we are working … and we are working fast.’ Because of the scale of the disaster, delivering such message is undoubtedly important in easing public stress and frustration. In addition to that, opening a communication channel to people to report investigation’s related testimonials is another message that ‘we are deadly serious finding the responsible people.’

 However, there are some points that should be carefully weighted. After all, we have to realize that this is an investigation committee; they cannot make their own judgments of guilt or innocence. So we should not expect them to publish any details of their findings, and even if they decide to take some names to the court, those names should be looked at as innocents unless proven otherwise in a court of law.

For that, the idea of using the website as a PR channel seems to be fine with me although I am not sure what kind of news they may want to periodically release. Nonetheless, the idea of online reporting troubles me a bit. I can hardly imagine the work this committee is going through investigating years of names, projects’ papers, contracts, etc … I am afraid the website will be publically misused by reporting stories and allegations without providing any sharp evidences. The required efforts to scrutinize such stories will consume tremendous resources and will definitely add more burdens on the committee members’ shoulders.

Finally, the website is also giving the choice of ‘proving any suggestions to develop and improve services in order to avoid any similar incidents in the future.’ I am not totally getting the purpose of this particular option because it simply does not fall into place. The website is dedicated to the investigation committee and, as far as I understand, service improvements are not part of its duties.

What do you think?

 
5 Comments

Posted in Public Relations

 

A Need for A Leader

01 Dec

When a situation gets so complicated, when hope vanishes and concerned people feel boiling anger inside; that’s a time for a leader to step up and rearrange the scene.

This is almost a historical lesson. Whether we are talking about religions, politics, businesses, or any group of people who come together for a shared purpose, when things reach the level of ‘total mess’, a leader intervention is inevitable.

However, this intervention is crucial and could cause significantly contradicting results. On one hand, such intervention could resurrect the lost hope, refocus the distracted views, and in some cases, gives back the sense of justice. On the other hand, some poor leaders’ interventions could push the matter more out of hand, emphasis the sense of loss, and just kill the hope and foster disloyalty.

King Abduallah, the custodian of the two holy mosques, intervention yesterday just came in the right time and it is definitely a reviving hope type of intervention. Jeddah residents’ anger was not only caused by the losses generated by the flood, but it was majorly caused by the feeling that there is no one admitting the responsibility of the city poor infrastructure, no one admitting the failure of planning and projects management, and caused by the city officials ignorance to at least step out and apologize.

King Abduallah provided all that in his yesterday intervention and in his orders to form a committee to investigate the real causes of the tragedy and to find out those responsible for the city hideous infrastructure status.

I am ready to take this as an indication that my city learned from its mistakes. Unfortunately, it learned the hard way!

 
10 Comments

Posted in Leadership

 

Strategic Thinking for Dummies

30 Nov

Since the moment we took our first breath, we have been programmed to think about immediate results. We go to school to pass tests and get certificates regardless of how we benefit from whatever we are taking. We ship the whole family to London or Paris for a summer vacation regardless of how this will impact our coming months’ budget. That’s on individuals level; on corporate level, we open stores, offer discounts, and produce aggressive ads to capture customers immediate attention and score quick profits regardless of our core purpose of existence and our long term vision. That’s why you always hear someone says that he/she only cares about getting the certificate, and that’s why a company that haunted you wherever you went for some times ceases to exist in few months or few years.

The problem is simple; the term ‘Strategic Thinking’ is not part of our vocabulary … it is not part of our lives.

What is happening in Jeddah these days is a definitive evidence on that. For a long time, the city lacked a strategic eye looking into its future. The forgotten city has been carrying the burdens of poor infrastructure, intense traffic, and high pollution without anybody to provide a long term vision to release these burdens. However, once a disaster takes place, we are pretty good at providing quick fixes, pointing fingers, and then, just go back to our normal routine.

What really pisses me off is that the concept of strategic planning is part of any management related books (for those who read) and it is also part of any managerial preparation courses or trainings (for those who take trainings); and for God sake, please do not tell me that nobody amongst our city officials reads or takes training. Having said that, I do not believe that Jeddah problems need books or trainings to be noticed, just ask anybody of its residents and he/she will list all its problems in a blink of an eye!

I really hope this disaster will be a slap on the face for us all to wake up. To start looking into the future and plan for it. We are really bored of being reactive, let’s be proactive for a change!

 
4 Comments

Posted in Culture, Project Management, Saudi business

 

Jeddah; Project Management Failures

28 Nov

After a compulsory absence from this blog for about two weeks; I am back. I was in China for a business trip and as surprising as might sounds, all social networking sites are censored out in China. No blogs, no Facebook, no Twitter, and no Youtube.

Anyway, leave all this for other posts; I am planning to write about this trip and about what we can learn from China. In the matter of fact, I was planning to start blogging about China right away, but I changed my mind after seeing what is happening in my beloved city; Jeddah. Although I got a glimpse of the news, I did not expect the situation to be that bad … that devastating!

If anybody wishes to write a management book about project management failures, he will find plenty of examples in this aged bride of the red sea; Jeddah. Project management failures, this is my only explanation to what happened in Jeddah this past week.

Millions and millions of riyals have been spent on projects that promised state of the art infrastructure to the long time forgotten city and guess what; those projects could not stand four hours of rain!

If you are a resident of this city, or ever been there in the last five years, you have all the right to wonder and ask; what are those companies digging out each and every street in the city doing? Where is the long time promised water draining system that every now and then one of those city officials comes out and smile in the front of camera flashes to state that we finished 60%, 70%, 80% of the system!! So can you please tell me how an 80% completed project to drain water floods could not stand a shower of water? And hey, how come a project that took five years and millions of riyals to complete like King Abduallah road turn to be a swimming pool of death?

I believe that the situation is self-explanatory. Most, if not all, projects carried out in this city are big … big failures. Most of them are over budgeted, usually passes any reasonable time constraints, completed in poor quality, and it is clear that they do not know anything about contingency planning! Now these are the corners of project management and, forgive the language, our city planners sucks at all of them!

Now thanks God we are not on the way of any tsunami or typhoon … otherwise, a city named Jeddah would become a history by now …  Having said that, watching the below videos gives you the impression that a tsunami has just passed from here … what a poor city!

 
28 Comments

Posted in Project Management, Saudi business