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September 2020 PM Update from Argentina

 

Agility, a built in capacity in new generation people?

 

REPORT

By Adriana Cibelli

International Correspondent

Buenos Aires, Argentina

 


 

This Coronavirus crisis has led us to understand that there is a latent solidarity in our society capable of being activated in times of crisis.

Well about the start of the mandatory quarantine in our country due to the current COVID19 pandemic, Lab-a, an start up of young programmers, engineers and designers, whose mission is to create high-impact solutions through technology in the field of health, decided to start thinking about “how to be helpful in the context of the national emergency”, in the words of its CEO, Facundo Cancino, a 26-year-old electronic engineering student.

The work team had declared quarantine in its workshop long before the government decreed it as mandatory. At that time they began the search for what would be the most necessary protection elements for health professionals and found that they were facial protection masks consisting of a support headband fastened to the upper part of the face with a frontal transparent acetate sheet to protect both the eye area, the nose and the mouth at the same time.

They designed a prototype that was soon submitted for validation to a group of infectious disease specialists, immunologists and respiratory kinesiologists from the Santa Catalina Clinic and the Hospital de Clínicas in Buenos Aires City. The initial design was improved in this incremental way until its approval by the specialists and at that point gave birth to the initiative called CORONATHON, a solidarity-based, non-profit endeavor, whose guiding idea was to manufacture and provide these personal protection solutions at no cost.

These masks would provide certain degree of protection to people assisting COVID 19 patients, since this kind of elements were not produced or at least not at the needed scale in the country. This was an alarming issue in our health system nationwide.

Lab-a decided to put aside their normal operations and redefine its focus to fully dedicate to this initiative.

Since they had 3D printers, they decided to make the support bands with that technology. Logically, due to the large scale, the printers they had would not be enough, so they asked their colleagues and acquaintances for help and thus a great number of people voluntarily joined the initiative immediately to help, each one performing the tasks from their respective homes. This gave them hope, filled them with energy and gave them strength to face, almost without sleeping during three long days, the hard work the had ahead to organize the entire production and logistics chain, in their own words.

What is surprising to me is not only the hjgh spirit of solidarity of all these young people, but the effectiveness with which they raised the project and started it in a record time of 4 days, as well as how they managed it in such an outstanding way with results worthy of being admired by the most experienced project managers.

During those 4 long days, they organized as a community, met with the National Ministry of Health, generated a registry with all countrywide public health centers, made alliances with an transparent acetate sheet supplier, who also performed the cuts and piercings according to the design, they also partnered a logistics company, which delivered supplies to the 3D makers, transferred their deliverables to the assembly center and then dispatched the finished product all over the country.

More…

To read entire report, click here

How to cite this report: Cibelli, A. (2020). Agility, a built in capacity in new generation people: September 2020 Project Management report from Argentina, PM World Journal, Vol IX, Issue IX, September. Available online at: https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/pmwj97-Sep2020-Cibelli-Argentina-Report.pdf

 


 

About the Author


Adriana Cibelli

Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

 

Adriana Cibelli, PMP is Director of activePMO, a Project Management and Leadership consulting services and training firm in Argentina.

Adriana has a degree in Electronic Engineering from Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a post degree in Design of Intelligent Buildings, from the same university and has managed projects for more than 20 years. She is a professor and director of Project Management and Leadership programs in some important Universities of Argentina and an International speaker. Adriana holds the Project Management Professional (PMP®) credential, is certified as Scrum Master (CSM) from Scrum Alliance, PMO-CP from PMO Global Alliance, and an SDI Certified Facilitator from Personal Strengths©.

Mrs. Cibelli is member and volunteer of PMI, has been Professional Development VP of the Board of Directors of PMI Buenos Aires and is the former Governance & Policies VP in the same chapter. Elected President in 2019, Adriana will become President of the PMI Buenos Aires Chapter on January 1st, 2021. She is currently working as a coordinator for the C.A.P.A. committee with the goal of integrating efforts and sharing resources between Argentinian PMI Chapters.

Adriana serves as an international correspondent for the PM World Journal in Argentina since February 2020. She can be contacted at adriana@activepmo.com and www.activepmo.com.

To view other works by Adriana Cibelli, visit her author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/adriana-cibelli/