Project Management

Issue Management in Project Management
1.0 INTRODUCTION
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I. Introduction Project Issue Management: Identifying and Resolving Issues Issue management is the process of identifying and resolving issues. Problems with staff or suppliers, technical failures, materials shortages these might all have a negative impact on your project. If this issue goes unresolved, you risk creating unnecessary conflicts, delays or even failure to produce your deliverable. Project issues must be identified, managed and resolved throughout the project in order for the project to be successful. Issue management plays an important role in maintaining project stability and efficiency throughout the project lifecycle. It addresses obstacles that can hinder project success and or block the project team from achieving its goals. These obstacles can include such factors as differences of opinion, situations to be investigated, emerging or unanticipated responsibilities. The purpose of issue management is to identify an document these issues and to resolve them by reviewing and carefully considering all relevant information. Below is the list o! Common issues that the Project Management has: 1.) Issues vs. Risk A risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative impact on a project's objectives. An issue is a point or matter in question or in dispute, or a point or matter that is not settled and is under discussion or over which there are opposing views or disagreements. Often project issues are first identified as a risk and through the risk management planning process may already have a planned approach to managing the issue. 2.) Issues Log Issues otherwise known as problems, gaps, inconsistencies, or conflicts need to be recorded when they happen. When you create an issues log, you provide a tool for reporting and communicating what's happening with the project. This makes sure that issues are indeed raised, and then investigated and resolved quickly and effectively.
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Without a defined process, you risk ignoring issues, or not taking them seriously enough until it's too late to deal with them successfully. 3.) Issue Management Framework Supplement your issues log with a framework, or process, for dealing with those issues. This framework helps the project team understand what to do with issues once they`ve been identified and logged.
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2.0 RELATED ISSUES
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II. Related Studies Project Issue Management Issues versus Risks Issues and risks are not quite the same thing. However, the exact nature of both is largely unknown before you begin. With risks, you usually have a general idea in advance that there's a cause for concern. An issue tends to be less predictable; it can arise with no warning. For example, being unable to find qualified staff is an identifiable risk. However, when one of your staff is in a car accident, and hospitalized for three weeks, that becomes an issue. Issues Log Issues otherwise known as problems, gaps, inconsistencies, or conflicts need to be recorded when they happen. When you create an issues log, you provide a tool for reporting and communicating what's happening with the project. This makes sure that issues are indeed raised, and then investigated and resolved quickly and effectively. Without a defined process, you risk ignoring issues, or not taking them seriously enough until it's too late to deal with them successfully. An issues log allows you to do the following: Have a safe and reliable method for the team to raise issues. Track and assign responsibility to specific people for each issue. Analyze and prioritize issues more easily. Record issue resolution for future reference and project learning. Monitor overall project health and status.
You can create an issues log by hand, build your own spreadsheet or database, or buy issue management software from a wide variety of vendors. Alternatively, you can use our free Issue Management Log. You can include following information in an issues log:
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Issue type Define the categories of issues that you're likely to encounter. This helps you track issues and assign the right people to resolve them. You could have broad descriptions like these:
Technical Relating to a technological problem in the project. Business process Relating to the project's design. Change management Relating to business, customer, or environmental changes. Resource Relating to equipment, material, or people problems. Third party Relating to issues with vendors, suppliers, or another outside party. Identifier Record who discovered the issue. Timing Indicate when the issue was identified. Description Provide details about what happened, and the potential impact. If the issue remains unresolved, identify which parts of the project will be affected. Priority Assign a priority rating to the issue. Here's an example: High priority A critical issue that will have a high impact on project success, and has the potential to stop the project completely. Medium priority An issue that will have a noticeable impact, but won't stop the project from proceeding. Low priority An issue that doesn't affect activities on the critical path, and probably won't have much impact if it's resolved at some point. Assignment/owner Determine who is responsible for resolving the issue. This person may or may not actually implement a solution. However, he or she is responsible for tracking it, and ensuring that it's dealt with according to its priority.
Target resolution date Determine the deadline for resolving the issue. Status Track the progress of the resolution with a clear label identifying the issue's overall status. Here's an example:

Open The issue has been identified, but no action has yet been taken. Investigating The issue, and possible solutions, are being investigated. Implementing The issue resolution is in process. Escalated The issue has been raised to management or the projects sponsor/steering committee, and directions or approval of a solution is pending.
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Resolved The resolution has been implemented, and the issue is closed.
Action/resolution description Describe the status of the issue and what has been done to find and implement a resolution. Include the dates of each action. Here's an example:
January 5 Assigned issue to Samantha. January 7 Testing started to identify origin of problem. January 8 Solution suggested, and sent to steering committee for approval. January 10 Approval received. Assigned implementation to Gregory. January 14 Solution successful. Issue resolved. Final resolution Include a brief description of what was done to address the issue.
Issues Management Framework Supplement your issues log with a framework, or process, for dealing with those issues. This framework helps the project team understand what to do with issues once they've been identified and logged. Developing the framework answers questions like these:
How will you assign responsibility for resolving the issue? For example, is there one person who handles all technical issues? Who would handle a vendor issue?
How will you know when to escalate an issue to management or the steering committee? You may want to create a matrix of potential business impact versus issue complexity to help you decide which issues should be taken to higher levels of management.
Which criteria will determine an issue's priority status? Who will set the target resolution date? How will issues be communicated within the team? Will you use regular meetings; log checks, status update emails, and so on?
How will you identify different issues if several occur during one project? It is helpful to number them so that you can identify issues easily when discussing them in progress meetings.
If change orders are needed, how will those be handled?

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When the resolution affects the budget or schedule, what will the update process be, and who will be responsible?
One of the key challenges of issues management is to resolve the problem quickly and then move on, with as little impact to the project as possible. The framework provides a structure for making decisions when issues arise. Remember to consider your team's needs as you develop the framework. Event Studies in Management Research: Theoretical and Empirical Issues We examined the use of event studies in management research and found that there was inadequate attention paid to theoretical and research design issues. This lack of attention may lead to false inferences regarding the significance of the events and the validity of the theories being tested. To illustrate the extent of this problem, we attempted to replicate three recent studies. To guide authors and reviewers, we out-line procedures for appropriate use of the event study method.
Manage project risks and issues Your project is humming along, and things are getting done. Then suddenly, an unanticipated product design issue comes up. As the project manager, you assess the issue as having no short-term scheduling effect, and you delegate resolution of the issue to a project team member. Unfortunately, the project team member thought that you were driving resolution of the issue. Before you know it, the project is late because your team didn't address the design issue in time. Management of project risks and issues is one of the most critical yet easily overlooked aspects of successful project management. Risks and issues can quickly derail plans and divert focus from important project activities. Unfortunately, there's no avoiding risks and issues, and so it pays to have a plan to minimize their effects. Managing risks
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Have you ever created a project plan and documented assumptions that need to be true in order for the project to be successful? Assumptions are relied-upon, specific outcomes for particular issues. Because you're relying on a specific outcome, the assumption presents a risk to the project if the outcome is different. For example, you assume that customers will be available for a minimum of 20 hours per week throughout the project. Because you've made this assumption, you're relying on the customers to be available, to avoid delays in the project schedule. Therefore, this assumption entails a project risk that needs to be managed. Project risks have the following attributes:

They're generally known at the beginning of the project. They can exist at a specific point in the project, or they can persist throughout the life of the project.
They can materially affect the outcome of the project if they become reality. There's a reasonable likelihood that they could become reality. Risks are extraordinary to what normally would be managed on a project.
A sound method of identifying project risks is to look at your assumptions. Assess risks based on three factors:

Materiality Likelihood Extraordinariness
When defining risks, try to limit you to the top six to eight things that:

Can seriously hurt the project if they were to occur. Have a likelihood of occurring. Are extraordinary to normal project management. As an example, if you're implementing a new technology as part of a project, you
would make the technology a project risk because there's likelihood that it could fail and

seriously hurt the project. But you wouldn't define as a risk something like "activities must be completed on time" because, although this is material and likely, it's not extraordinary. Implement mitigation strategies for risks After you define the top project risks, your next step is to put mitigation strategies in place. To continue with the example of implementing a new technology, a mitigation strategy might include conducting stress and acceptance testing at the beginning of the project to ensure that the technology is able to perform under expected volumes. By defining mitigation strategies for each risk, you outline how to head off risk and manage potential issues. Managing issues Similar to risks, issues are problems that occur during a project. If an issue isn't managed, it can materially affect the successful completion of a project. Where issues differ from risks, however, is that they generally don't persist throughout the project, and they may not be known at the outset of a project. Your issue list will not be persistent, as your risk list will be; issues will open and close as they're identified and resolved. What's important in identifying and managing issues is this: Issues must be material to successful project completion. For example, an issue exists if the project sponsor needs to make a policy decision as a precursor to a key design point that you're completing. There's materiality because the policy change directly affects the design and may have a widespread effect on the organization. In addition, you may have an issue on your hands if the owner of a work item is unable or unwilling to drive resolution of the item. In this situation, the project manager may escalate the issue to the project sponsor or a steering committee for resolution.
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Issue Management Metricstream Managing issues such as non-conformance, exceptions, loss-events, and process deviations is one of the central functions of an organization's quality, compliance, and risk management units. Relying on stand-alone point solutions or paper-based processes to manage issues is ineffective, as they fail to address systemic problems due to a lack of broad enterprise reach and visibility. To successfully handle issues, managers need powerful automation and collaboration tools that span departments. Issue & Tracking Management Software Solution MetricStream Issue Management Solution enables companies to establish and follow consistent procedures for issue capture, loss event tracking, task management, and status reporting. The solution supports the identification and evaluation of issues as well as case investigation and tracking, and remediation or corrective action. Powerful analytics along with an issue tracking and reporting functionality give managers complete and real-time visibility into the quality and compliance system, and provide critical information for reducing the risk of non-compliance. The system also supports regulatory reporting and submission with decision trees that identify reportable events. Benefits of the Solution
Accelerates issue recording, review, and approval cycles as incidents automatically move from one stage to the next
Reduces repeat occurrence with consistent and closed-loop investigation, remedial, and corrective action
Improves communication and teamwork on exception cases across departments and functional areas
Provides enterprise-wide visibility into the status of issues, incidents, and tracking metrics
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Issue Management Dow Jones Business success hinges on issue management Competitiveness in business depends a great deal on issue management. An issue is the difference between the actions of a company and the expectations of its stakeholders. For example, a change in product quality may defy the expectations of customers. Failure to respond to market opportunities may not meet the expectations of shareholders; or changes to personnel policies may create problems with employee morale. Successful issue management depends on addressing concerns, such as credit risk management before they become full blown problems. Dow Jones provides tools to help enterprise management better deal with scenarios of this kind. Dow Jones's solutions make issue management cost-effective Management of significant business issues requires that enterprises constantly stay aware of developments and trends throughout the marketplace, as well as within the company. As a leading provider of essential business newsand information, Dow Jones's products and services can cost-effectively enable enterprises to collect, process and deliver the kind of business intelligence required for effective issue management. Dow Jones gives companies access to a vast collection of business and news information from more than 28,000 sources in 23 languages as well as blogs, message boards and more than 15.000 influential websites, and streamlines the delivery of intelligence and news to meet the needs of individuals, divisions and the company as a whole. But it's Dow Jones'smedia intelligence products that can really zero in on trends that may signal problems to address. Management of complicated issues made simple The first step in effective issue management, of course, is identifying potential problems, and that's where Dow Jones Insight products can make a difference. Dow Jones Insight is a suite of products for developing media intelligence and managing corporate reputation. Combining advanced research methodologies with text miningcapabilities and accessing a deep archive of trusted content, Dow Jones Insight products help companies identify media trends, measure communications effectiveness

and monitor perception of the company within a variety of audiences. Dow Jones Insight products make the management of potential issues easier by communicating findings through rich visualizations, making it possible to quickly identify hot spots. With Dow Jones Insight products, enterprises can more easily head off problems before they create damage. Issue Management Zoho Project Issue Management, Bug Tracking Software Issues, bugs, defects and faults are an unavoidable part of any undertaking be it a high level software development project spanning several months or a short term collaborative effort for a group event spanning days; because to err is human. How these issues and bugs are tracked, followed and fixed makes all the difference between a great job and an ordinary job. And great jobs are the ones that are recognized and valued. The process of exclusively handling these issues or bugs in any project is called Issue management or Bug tracking in software development terms, with bugs and issues used alternatively these days. Issue Management Elizabeth Dougall, Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Dr. Dougalls article contains definitions, concepts, tips and insights on what research teaches us about issues management. As the paper explores selected concepts from contemporary business and communication scholars, readers are encouraged to post comments and to click on the links to the authors original sources. Issues management is a seductive concept. For those who are talented and tenacious enough to make their careers in public relations, the idea of managing contentious issuestaming them, bringing them to heel and making them do our biddingis illusory, but utterly compelling. For those who have battled for the legitimacy

of public relations as a management function, the credibility and senior management access issues management can deliver is something that communication professionals may find only in the midst of crises. A 2007 survey of CEOs revealed their expectation that communications chiefs be equipped to see around corners and anticipate how different audiences will react to different events, messages and channels (The Authentic Enterprise, 2007, p. 44). Issues management is all about facilitating communication leadership in organizations. In fact, the USC Annenberg 2007 GAP V survey of senior public relations practitioners revealed that those with direct budgetary responsibility for issues management (42 percent) were more likely to report higher levels of C-suite support, effective working relationships with other departments, larger budgets, and more access to resources for research, evaluation and strategic implementation. So emphatic was the relationship between issues management and key indicators of effective practice, the authors added establishing an issues management strategy to the list of 13 best practices for public relations. This journey begins in Module 1 with important definitions, concepts, tips and insights for those looking for an overview of discipline. Module 2 provides a brief overview of the origins of the discipline and Module 3 explores selected concepts from contemporary scholars of business and communication strategy. Dr. Dougalls article contains definitions, concepts, tips and insights on what research teaches us about issues management. As the paper explores selected concepts from contemporary business and communication scholars, readers are encouraged to post comments and to click on the links to the authors original sources. Issues management is a seductive concept. For those who are talented and tenacious enough to make their careers in public relations, the idea of managing contentious issuestaming them, bringing them to heel and making them do our biddingis illusory, but utterly compelling. For those who have battled for the legitimacy of public relations as a management function, the credibility and senior management

access issues management can deliver is something that communication professionals may find only in the midst of crises. A 2007 survey of CEOs revealed their expectation that communications chiefs be equipped to see around corners and anticipate how different audiences will react to different events, messages and channels (The Authentic Enterprise, 2007, p. 44). Issues management is all about facilitating communication leadership in organizations. In fact, the USC Annenberg 2007 GAP V survey of senior public relations practitioners revealed that those with direct budgetary responsibility for issues management (42 percent) were more likely to report higher levels of C-suite support, effective working relationships with other departments, larger budgets, and more access to resources for research, evaluation and strategic implementation. So emphatic was the relationship between issues management and key indicators of effective practice, the authors added establishing an issues management strategy to the list of 13 best practices for public relations. This journey begins in Module 1 with important definitions, concepts, tips and insights for those looking for an overview of discipline. Module 2 provides a brief overview of the origins of the discipline and Module 3 explores selected concepts from contemporary scholars of business and communication strategy. Module 1The Practice of Issues Management Issues management defined Issues management is an anticipatory, strategic management process that helps organizations detect and respond appropriately to emerging trends or changes in the socio-political environment. These trends or changes may then crystallize into an issue, which is a situation that evokes the attention and concern of influential organizational publics and stakeholders. At its best, issues management is stewardship for building, maintaining and repairing relationships with stakeholders and stake seekers (Heath, 2002).
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Organizations engage in issues management if decision-makers are actively looking for, anticipating, and responding to shifting stakeholder expectations and perceptions likely to have important consequences for the organization. Such responses may be operational and immediately visible, such as McDonalds anticipatory move from plastic to paper packaging in 1990. Other common strategic responses are direct, behind-thescenes negotiations with lawmakers and bureaucrats, and proactive campaigns using paid and earned media to influence how issues are framed. Pro-life (e.g. National Right to Life) and pro-choice organizations (e.g. Planned Parenthood) are well-established institutions that have long contended the same issue using many similar strategies and tactics, but with opposing and openly antagonistic positions. Issues should precipitate action when a collective, informed assessment demonstrates that the organization is likely to be affected. For example, in 2007, changes to local laws made the retrofitting of car sunroofs illegal in Beijing and left a national manufacturer of sunroofs scrambling to negotiate with other local and regional governments to protect their profitable business. Introduced in advance of the 2008 Olympics, the laws were the outcome of lobbying by various stakeholders, including health and safety agencies, and car manufacturers. The emerging trend was increased attention being paid to health and safety concerns in that cityincluding air quality, motor vehicle safety and traffic reduction. The sunroof manufacturer was caught in the crossfire of stakeholder interests, unable to respond effectively. The outcome was substantive and negative. In contrast, the America West Arena in Phoenix, Arizona, provided an example of effective issues management in action when it worked with disabilities advocacy groups to ensure a new arena would not merely comply with the specifications of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), but rather, would meet a higher standard set collaboratively (Matera & Artique, 2000). Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) had been on the issues management radar of the National Cattlemens Beef Association (NCBA) for years when, in 2003, the first case of BSE on American soil was identified in Washington State. By anticipating the event and mapping out a goal-driven response in advance, the NCBA was able to respond rapidly.

Helped by the fact that only one infected animal imported from Canada had been identified, the following strategic response effectively contained consumer concerns about American beef. The response was multi-layered, including direct consultation with regulators, consumer advocacy groups and other key stakeholders, as well as intensive national and international news media outreach. Evaluation measures, such as media coverage achieved, were positive. More significantly, beef demand rose by almost 8 percent in 2004 and consumer confidence in American beef increased from 88 percent just prior to the BSE event in 2003 to 93 percent in 2005; consumer spending on beef also increased an estimated $8 billion between 2003 and 2004 (National Cattlemens Beef Association, 2005). So, who should practice issues management? Chase (1984) argued that issues management is a natural fit for public relations and its various disciplines including public affairs, communications and government relations. Heath and Cousino (1990) argued that public relations practitioners understand and can play important roles in increasingly complex environments, including promoting the bottom line interests of the organization and building relationships. Issue communication is an important strategic component of issues management, but good decisions about communication strategies and tactics are more likely to be made by practitioners who understand the full scope of issues management, have an extensive knowledge of the organization and its environment, and are skilled collaborators equipped to negotiate within and across organizational boundaries. A 2002 survey by the Foundation for Public Affairs revealed that 44 percent of all companies with an internally recognized public affairs function have staff members working on issues management full-time. The same survey showed that within companies regularly using non-dedicated members to manage issues, 71 percent obtain these individuals from other corporate staff functions like human resources or finance (Mahon, Heugens & Lamertz, 2004). Furthermore, Regester and Larkin (2005) contend that public relations practitioners are well placed to help manage issues effectively, but often lack the necessary access to strategic planning functions or an appropriate networking environment which encourages informal as well as formal

contact and reporting, (p. 44). Clearly, issues management is a process that demands cross-functional teams and effective collaboration. Issues In the context of corporate issues management, issues are controversial inconsistencies caused by gaps between the expectations of corporations and those of their publics. These gaps lead to a contestable point of difference, the resolution of which can have important consequences for an organization (Heath, 1997; Wartick & Mahon, 1994). While organizations, stakeholders and other constituencies may be concerned about the same issue, their perspectives are rarely the same. The role of the issues management process is to divine and determine the existence and likely impacts of these contestable points of difference. See the Issue Management Councils clarification for more information on the subject. Issues development Issues are commonly described as having a lifecycle comprising five stages early, emerging, current, crisis and dormant. In simple terms, as the issue moves through the first four stages, it attracts more attention and becomes less manageable from the organizations point of view. In other words, if the organizations issues management process detects an issue in the earliest stage, more response choices such as product modification, the introduction of new conduct codes or anticipatory collaboration with key interest groupsare available to decision-makers. As the issue matures, the number of engaged stakeholders, publics and other influencers expands, positions on the issue become more entrenched and the strategic choices available to the organization shrink. If and when the issue becomes a crisis for the organization, the only available responses are reactive and are sometimes imposed by external parties, such as government agencies. Not all issues reach the crisis stage and many crises are not the result of an underlying issue.
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For example, an ice storm in November 2002 caused extensive, multi-day power outages in North and South Carolina. In spite of steps taken by the health authorities and major power utilities to issue standard warnings about the indoor use of generators, gas grills and charcoal grills for temporary heating and cooking, hundreds of carbon monoxide poisoning cases were recorded across the state during the power outages that followed. Disproportionately represented among the affected were non-English speaking Latino immigrants. The warnings, issued only in English, had failed to reach the rapidly expanding migrant, Spanish-speaking labor force moving into North Carolina. The utilities and many other corporate and government organizations in the state had neglected to recognize the many implications of a growing population of nonEnglish speakers. Although not culpable for the deaths, the utilities recognized the need to transform their capacities to communicate effectively across language barriers in emergencies. The issue was not the ice storm or the power failure, but the fact that experienced and well-resourced utilities with sophisticated communications departments and carefully crafted public profiles failed to anticipate the changing state demographics and to incorporate known variables, such as the increasing number of energy consumers without English literacy. There was a gap between the performance stakeholdersregulators, special interest groups and citizensexpected of these companies and their actual performance. Essential steps in issues management Heath (1997) argues that issues management is the proactive application of four strategic options: (1) strategic business planning, (2) getting the house in order corporate responsibility, (3) scouting the terrainscanning, identification, monitoring, analysis and priority setting, and (4) strong defense and smart offenceissues communication. Developed by and for practitioners, Palese and Crane (2002) propose a four-stage model comprising issue identification, analysis, strategy and measurement (see Figure 1). Regester and Larkin (2005) recommend a seven-step process including monitoring, identification, prioritization, analysis, strategy decision, implementation and evaluation (see Figure 2).
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While there are many models of the issues management, most contend that the process comprises between five and 10 steps that fall into three major categories: (1) issue identification and analysis, (2) strategic decision-making and action, and (3) evaluation. Practitioners and scholars alike have tended to focus most on the first two categories of steps (See Anticipatory Management Process). Steps in issue identification and analysis include scanning and monitoring. At the strategic decision-making stage, an appointed issue action team analyzes the issues and priorities in more detail. This team should include people who are closest to the issue and best equipped to direct and implement the organizations response. At this stage, the team allocates resources to an emerging or current issue and initiates the investigation of various strategic optionsincluding issue communication. Finally, the decisions enacted are evaluated. The process requires ongoing collaboration of key internal stakeholders, facilitated by frequent interaction. In other words, issues management demands cross-organizational collaboration, regular teleconferences and email communication, and face-to-face meetings. Issues managers dont just plug into a database and relinquish all responsibility to information science. Issue Identification ScanningThe first step in effective issues management is the application of informal and formal research methods to explore the organizations environment. The assumption is that mindful scanning of the environment is a kind of insurance against surprise threats or missed opportunities (Bridges & Nelson, 2000, p. 112). While the labels applied may vary, organizational environments are typically divided into sectors, including the social (i.e. public opinion/reputation), economic, political/regulatory and competitive. Given our information-rich time, the challenge is not sourcing information, but in mining that information for organization-relevant, intelligible and credible insight. In general terms, environmental scanning is the systematic, multi-method collection and review of potentially relevant data from industry, government and academic sources.

Long laundry lists itemizing where to scan for early and emerging issues are provided in essential texts such as Robert Heaths Strategic Issues Management. These lists change over time as information and communication technologies expand and improve. MonitoringWhile often paired with scanning and used interchangeably, monitoring is conceptually and practically a step separate from scanning. When scanning systems reveal a situation or problem with the earmarks of an emerging organizational issue, the decision to monitor should be taken. Heath (1997) argued that monitoring should occur only after the issue meets three criteria: The issue (1) is listed in standard indexes, which suggests growing legitimacy as signaled by journalists and other opinion leaders, (2) offers a quantifiable threat or opportunity in terms of the organizations markets or operations, (3) is championed by a group or institution with actual or potential influence. Strategic Decision-making PrioritizationDetermining which issues demand organizational response and, therefore, the allocation of resources demands detailed analysis. Although there are many ways to analyze issues using open access and proprietary models, the two most critical dimensions of issues are probability of occurrence and organizational impact. In other words, (1) How likely is the issue to affect the organization? and (2) How much impact will the issue have? No two issues are equal and should not be treated as such. Issues can be moved up on the agenda for action, or back to continued monitoring, depending on prioritization. Managers assigned by organizations to monitor issues should define and prioritize their publics based on the opinions people hold and their degree of involvement with the issues (Berkowitz & Turnmire, 1994; Vasquez, 1994). Issues that spread rapidly through the Internetissue contagionspresent a relatively new and volatile challenge that is particularly important at the prioritization stage (Coombs, 2002). In other words, assessing the likelihood of an issue gaining momentum via the Internet must be considered.
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Strategic OptionsLike any other management discipline, robust issues management strategy emerges from sound data, diverse viewpoints and ingenuity. Assembling the right people, sometimes called an issue action team,arming them with credible information, and identifying realistic and measurable objectives provides the foundation for effective anticipatory and responsive strategy development. Anticipatory management specialists William Ashley and James Morrison contend that scenarios are a highly effective way to stimulate strategic thinking by helping provide maps of the alternate pathways along which issues may develop. Ashley and Morrison suggest a six-step approach to creating multiple scenarios, specifically: Frame an issue (For example, how is the organization contributing to environmental degradation of the area and what can be done to reduce the negative impact?); Specify decisions factors (What questions must be addressed?); Identify environmental forces by scanning and monitoring; select a logic or story line (Explain why and how these forces might take different paths. For example, energy utilities faced with environmental concerns are making choices between retro-fitting or updating existing facilities vs. rebuilding and repowering new facilities ); Develop alternate scenarios (For example, short-term, low-cost and higher risk of failure, or medium-term, higher cost and more permanent); Decide implications and recommend actions. Action TakingAccording to issues manager practitioner-expert Tony Jacques, the greatest barriers to effective issues management are the lack of clear objectives, and unwillingness or inability to act (Jacques, 2000). As Jacques points out, issues management is a process with achieved results. The scanning, monitoring, prioritization and strategic decision-making steps have no value unless action is taken toward achieving specific and measurable objectives. Jacques also makes the point that issues management no longer belongs to corporations; in fact, community organizations,

NGOs, and other activist and advocacy groups have enacted some of the most innovative, aggressive and successful issue management initiatives of the modern era. See, for example, Greenpeaces role in drafting the Kyoto protocol in 1997, an international treaty to curb greenhouse gases. The agreement was subsequently ratified by almost all countries other than the United States. One essential ingredient for success of initiatives like this is that they are guided by singularly clear objectives set and driven by committed actors who are willing and able to take action. Evaluation/Measuring Outcomes The steps involved in evaluating the success of issues management initiatives will vary as much as the issues themselves. The first and most crucial step in evaluation is setting clear and measurable objectives. Mark Twains maxim If you dont know where youre going, any road will get you there, is as applicable to issues management as it is to any other endeavor. Practitioners today have access to more measurement tools than ever before; the challenge is to find the tools that best fit the set objectives. For example, measuring the extent and tone of media coverage is meaningful only if one of the pursued objectives is to secure specific media attention in terms of volume, channels, tone and so on. Other objectives, such as influencing the drafting of legislation, positioning the organization effectively in relation to an industry-wide problem, or correcting allegations about a product or service all require different metrics. While the drafting of legislation can be tracked relatively easily, repositioning or correcting allegations present more complex measurement challenges and require insights into the identity, perceptions and behaviors of target stakeholders before and after the issues strategies are enacted. Tools such as surveys and interviews, as well as behavioral measures such as purchasing decisions, may all be necessary to evaluate such a layered objective. More resources than ever before are available to guide practitioners through their measurement and evaluation challenges, which are comparable across disciplines rather than specific to any one process. See, for example, Using Public Relations
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Research to Drive Business Results by Katharine Delahaye Paine, Pauline Draper and Angela Jeffrey. Issue Management G.C.S Issue management means the long term handling of issues that affect an organization's strategy, its core business or its arena of public and regulatory activity. Some issues are outside of the organization's control while some constitute part of the organization's current, but not core, activities. The aim of issue management is the shaping or changing of public opinion and decision makers' opinions concerning a selected issue, in accordance with the organization's needs. Issue management is an interdisciplinary specialization that calls for strategic perception plus a precise application of the organization's resources, simultaneously and on a number of parallel levelsinternal, public, legal and regulatory. During the past decade, GCS has worked with some of the largest, most influential companies in the Israeli market and takes an active role in many of todays most controversial issues in the areas of media, industry, infrastructure, energy, finances, education and health. The GCS team of advisors possesses a wealth of professional, media, parliamentary, economic and legal experience that enables it to rapidly deploy a designated organizational layout. The team advises, supervises and manages all of the public, regulatory, PR and communication dimensions involved in the promotion of a specific issue. This process involves: formulating an information strategy; addressing the public through free media, paid media and internet activity; representing the customer and promoting the issue opposite bodies in the Knesset and in government; activating lobbying firms, legal counselors and specialists from different fields; creating collaborative relationships; setting up information dissemination centers, visitors' centers, etc.

Since 1999, GCS has managed the Cellular Companies Forum in which Cellcom, Partner and Pelephone firms are members (www.infocell.org). The Forum deals with the public dimension involved in the positioning of the cellular infrastructure in Israel. This is a complex issue with media, PR, advertising, technological, legal, municipal and regulatory aspects. The firms and activities GCS has worked with include the three cable companies Matav, Arutsey Zahav and Tevel (prior to their merger), Bezeq through its activity opposite the Gronao Committee, the Union of Beverage Manufacturers through its activity vis--vis the deposit law, the tender for the establishment of the light train in Gush Dan, the establishment of a power station and many other projects. Basing our work on the work methodology of our founders which has been developed and tested through a multiplicity of complex projects in Israel and around the world, GCS achieves results for its customers. ISSUE MANAGEMENT Larry Cone One of the underappreciated aspects of project management is managing the Issues. But what is an issue? Ive found that a significant part of the value I bring as a Project Manager is in the process and discipline of managing issues. Surprisingly, the concept of Issues is somewhat controversial in project management circles. I worked with a very capable manager who believed that admitting to or even identifying unresolved issues as part of a customer-facing project put the PM on the defensive. Popular lite project management tools like Basecamp dont have an issue management capability. For that matter, popular heavy project management tools like MSProject dont have an issues management capability, either. Why, I ask?
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Possibly, like so much else in the broad field of human endeavor, it is a matter of definition. Maybe my Issue list is someone elses to do list, or project check off list, or Risk management tool. So Ill ruminate a bit on my definition of a Project Issue. OK Ive ruminated. Here is what Ive got so far.
Project Issue: An issue in a project represents a question or decision that is important to one or more stakeholders and should be addressed by the project team as part of the project execution. . Thats a pretty broad definition, and has several different facets: An issue does not have to be answered or resolved. In fact, many issues can be documented, with or without resolution. Some can be passed on to a future project, or left for another initiative An issue must pass some importance hurdle to some stakeholder. This obviously is pretty subjective, and is in the eye of the beholder, but someone must think the issue is at least worth documenting Addressed can mean just documenting the issue, and leaving it unresolved. This can happen at both ends of the scale the trivial need not be resolved, and may truly important issues cant be resolved by the project team Addressed can mean capturing a decision about an issue, even if the decision is not to deal with an issue within the scope of the project.
Within these broad boundaries, issue management is an important project management discipline. It helps with several important goals risk management and scope management, to name two.
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Issue Management Oracle Project Overview of Issue Management An issue is a concern, problem, or outstanding question on a project or task. Issue management is the process of recording, tracking, and resolving issues. This process often requires the collection of input from various people associated with the project, and other interested parties. Oracle Projects provides you with a centralized issue management system that enables you to manage this process and communicate issues in a consistent and timely manner. Issue management offers many features, such as the ability to:

Use a predefined set of issue types Define statuses for issues according to the needs of your organization Create issues with assigned actions Associate related documents with an issue Enable team members to create and manage issues Search for issues across projects Copy existing issues to expedite the creation of new issues Export a list of issues into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to perform further analysis or reporting
Automatically route issue notifications using Oracle Workflow Change the owner of a single issue or multiple issues at the same time Track the ownership and status history of issues, and view a history of assignments
Issues can detract attention and resources from project completion. Therefore, you want to resolve and close issues quickly. To achieve this goal, you can create and assign actions on issues to project team members or others enabling all participants of an issue to collaborate and share information. This centralized system enables you to track comments and actions performed by action assignees, providing you and all interested parties visibility of the entire issue resolution process.

Setup is required in order to use issue management. For information on implementing issue management, see: Issue and Change Management, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide. Issue Participation Both project team members and non-team members can participate in the resolution of an issue. These participants can have different levels of access to the issue and related actions based on both the status of the issue and the type of assigned actions. The following list shows the possible participants and their level of participation. Variable Creator Description An issue creator is a project team member who creates the issue and designates the owner. Only the creator and users with proper project security access such as super users, users with project authority for an organization, and project managers have access to an issue while it is in Draft status. Owner An issue owner is a project team member who has been assigned the responsibility of overseeing the progress, resolution, and closure of an issue. This person creates and assigns actions to both team members and nonteam members, as appropriate. In addition, users who have proper project security access can change the status and ownership of items. The owner of the issue can be changed only while the issue is in either Draft or Working status. Assignee An assignee is a person who has been assigned an action. The assignee can respond, close, or reassign the action.
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Approver An approver reviews and approves an issue. Project managers are the default issue approvers. If the person that submits the issue for approval is the project manager, the issue is automatically approved once it is submitted.
Issue Statuses The status of an issue determines its visibility and if you can update it. Only the issue owner and a user with project security access can change the status of an issue. You can control the progression of status changes throughout the issue life cycle and view the history of status changes. The statuses that you can assign to an issue are determined by the control item status list that is associated with the issue type. When you create a new issue document, you can only select from the associated control item status list, statuses that have been marked as starting statuses and mapped to a system status of Draft or Working. Oracle Projects provides a default control item status list that includes a set of predefined system statuses. Your implementation team can define additional status lists and statuses to meet the needs of your organization. For more information, see: Defining Statuses and Status Options, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide, and Control Item Statuses and Status Lists, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide. The following list shows the predefined system statuses and the business rules associated with each status.
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Variable Draft Description The issue and its assigned actions are visible only to the person who created the issue and persons who have proper project security access. You can delete an issue only if it is in Draft status. Next Allowable Status: Working Working The issue is visible to action assignees and team members. You can update the issue. Next Allowable Statuses: Submitted (only if approval is enabled), Canceled, Closed (only if approval is disabled) Submitted The issue is awaiting approval. You can update progress and comments, but you cannot modify the issue. If you want to make other changes, you must rework the issue. Next Allowable Statuses: Approved, Rejected, Canceled Approved The approver has approved the issue resolution and the issue can be closed. You can update progress and comments, but you cannot modify the issue. Next Allowable Statuses: Closed, Canceled Rejected The approver has rejected the issue. You can update progress and comments, but you cannot modify the issue. You can either rework the issue to make corrections an then resubmit it, or you can cancel the issue. Reworking the issue automatically changes the status back to Working. Next Allowable Statuses: Working, Canceled Closed The issue is resolved and no additional work is necessary. You cannot modify the issue.
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If approval is enabled, you can close an issue at any time after it has been approved. If approval is not enabled, you can close the issue from Working status. Next Allowable Statuses: Working Canceled The issue is no longer a concern and does not require further work. You cannot modify the issue. Next Allowable Statuses: none
Issue Attributes When you create an issue, the information you provide assists in its tracking and resolution. This section describes some of the attributes of an issue. Classification You must select a classification for each issue. This classification provides further categorization of the issue. For example, you have defined classifications of Resource, Knowledge Gap, and Dependencies. You can create a personalized view of all the Resource issues. The classification enables you to categorize your issues into meaningful groups for identifying high problem areas. Required by Date You can specify a date by which the issue should be resolved. This attribute is used to calculate the value for Days Until Due, which indicates to team members the urgency of the issue by showing how much time is left to resolve and close an issue. Owner You must assign ownership either to yourself or another project team member. Ownership defaults to the Project Manager.
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Task You can associate the issue to a particular task on either the currently published workplan or financial structure. Source If source information is enabled for the issue type, you can specify the originating source of the issue and its related information. System Number and Issue Number Each issue is assigned a system-generated number that is unique across all projects. In addition, each issue has a number to identify it within the project. Depending on your implementation, this number is either generated automatically or must be entered manually. The issue numbers must be unique for each issue type within each project. You can have duplicate numbers for the same issue types across different projects. However, you cannot have two issues with the same issue type with the same number within a project. For example, if you have issue types of Internal Issues, Client Issues, and Environments Issues, then the numbering of the issues for each of these types will begin with 1 for each project. The following table lists example issues for projects A and B and their respective numbering. Issue Project Issue Summary A A Missing documents for signoff Completion of task dependent on Issue Type Number Client Issue 1 Client Issue 2 System Number 1 2
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test results A Delivery of test product delayed Internal Issue B Need documented signoff process Internal Issue B B Assessment of expanded scope Need budget for another staff consultant Client Issue 1 Client Issue 2 5 6 1 4 1 3
Note: This example assumes that the issues have been created in the order presented. If automatic numbering is enabled for the issue type, then the number appears when the issue status is changed to Working. By default, Oracle Projects generates issue numbers sequentially. However, you can optionally use the Control Item Document Numbering Extension to define your own numbering logic. See: Control Item Document Numbering Extension, Oracle Projects APIs, Client Extensions, and Open Interfaces Reference. If manual numbering is enabled for the issue type, then you must enter a unique number for the issue prior to changing the status from Draft to Working. Using Issue Management Issue management consists of the following stages:
Creating and assigning issues When you identify an issue for a project or task, you can record the issue details in Oracle Projects and assign ownership of the issue. The issue owner then
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creates and assigns actions in an effort to resolve the issue. Oracle Projects generates workflow notifications when issues and actions are assigned. For more information, see: Creating Issues.
Managing issues You can view and manage issues for one or more projects for which you are responsible for resolving. You can create personalized lists to help you determine which issues need immediate attention. You can change the owner and the status of an issue, and you can view ownership and status history of issues. Additionally, you can update the progress of issues and respond to actions to help resolve issues in a timely manner. For more information, see: Managing Issues.
Resolving and closing issues After an issue is resolved and all actions are closed, the issue owner may be required to submit the issue for approval. In this case, the issue owner can close an issue only after it is approved. Oracle Projects generates workflow notifications to prompt timely resolution of issues. If sign-off or approval is required, then an e-mail containing the possible outcomes is delivered to the person responsible for approval. If approval is not required, you can close the issue immediately. For more information, see: Resolving Issues.
Creating Issues You create an issue to record and track problems, questions, or concerns relating to a particular project or task. Each issue is based on a predefined issue type. The issue type determines who can create an issue of that type and the general behavior of an issue. For example, the issue type specifies how issues are numbered and whether a resolution is required. Issue types are associated with project types. This association provides the list of issue types available for a given project. For more
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information on issue types, see: Issue and Change Management, Oracle Projects Implementation Guide. To create an issue 1. Navigate to the Issues page for a project. 2. Select the desired issue type. 3. Enter the issue details and initial action, as appropriate. Note: If you are not ready for the project team to begin working on the issue and assigned action, then you must change the status to Draft before you save the issue for the first time. You cannot change the status of a working issue back to Draft once it has been saved. 4. Save the issue. 5. Define additional actions. 6. If the issue status was originally set to Draft, change the status of the issue to Working when you are ready for the project team members and other action assignees to begin working on their actions and the resolution of the issue. Each issue has a log tracking the interaction between team members and action assignees. All comments and responses to actions are recorded in this log and can be viewed through the Interaction History page. You can also create issues from the Team Member Home page for any project on which you are a team member. Copying Existing Issues To quickly create an issue, you can copy an existing issue from any project to which you have access. You can also create an issue from an existing change request or change order.
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Attaching Documents and Relating Other Items to Issues To provide additional information for an issue, you can attach documents. These documents can be plain text, URL addresses, or external documents. You can also reference related issues, change requests, and change orders to an issue from any project to which you have access. Creating and Assigning Actions to Issues An action is an assigned question or unit of work related to the issue. The action consists of the request and related information, and all responses to the request. Actions enable project team members and other interested parties to collaborate on an issue, and can help in the resolution of the issue. For example, if you want someone to comment on a proposed resolution for the issue, then you can create an action to request a response. You can create actions for an issue that is in either Draft or Working status, and assign these actions to any person. However, these actions are visible to the assignees only when the issue is in Working status. You can create two types of actions: Review or Update. A review action allows the assignee to review the issue and enter a response. An update action allows the assignee to update the issue for as long as the action is open. Only the issue owner or project manager can create update actions. However, persons assigned to open review and update actions can create new review actions for other people. When you define an action, you can specify a due date for the response in the Required by Date field. This date assists the issue owner in managing outstanding actions on the issue. You can also request signoff from the action assignee in order to confirm the action response. The issue owner can submit the issue for approval or close it only after all the actions are closed.
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Managing Issues You can drill down into the details of an issue from any list of issues. As a project manager, you can manage issues and actions related to your projects on issues list pages. As a project team member, you can manage the issues you own and open actions assigned to you through the Team Member Home page. You can use issues lists to search for issues on all projects for which you are a team member. When you search for issues, you must specify at least one of the following criteria:

Type Number Summary Project Name Project Number Owner System Number
Viewing Issues and Progress You can view issues and add comments for any active project on which you are a team member or have proper project security access. To help you manage your issues, Oracle Projects provides the following views of the Issues list for a given project:
Open Issues: This view includes all issues in Working, Submitted, Rejected, and Approved statuses.
All Draft and Open Issues: This view includes all issues in Working, Submitted, Rejected, and Approved statuses. Any issues in Draft status that you created are also displayed in this view.
Overdue Open Issues: This view includes all issues that have a past due required-by date, but have not been closed or canceled.
High Priority Issues: This view includes all high priority issues.
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In Trouble Issues: This view indicates any issues that are in trouble.
You can create additional personalized views based on any of the issue attributes. The following columns are available in these views to provide additional information to help you manage issues:
Days Since Updated: This column indicates the number of days since the issue was updated. The value of this column is updated each time an issue attribute or action is modified.
Days Until Due: This column indicates the number of days until the issue is due. If the value of this column is negative, the issue or action is overdue.
From either of these issues lists, you can select to see the progress, status, actions, and any related documents. You can also export the issue list to Microsoft Excel for further reporting and analysis. The exported list will expand to include all attributes available in the personalized view. Updating Issue Progress Issue owners can periodically update the progress towards resolving the issue. The progress includes an as of date, progress status, and a textual description of the progress being made on the issue. The progress status is reflected in both of the predefined views of open issues and provides the project manager a quick indicator for identifying the issues that need attention. Changing and Viewing Issue Ownership Oracle Projects enables you to change the owner and view the complete ownership history of an issue. If you do not have the authority to change the owner, you can only view the ownership history. You can update the ownership and view ownership history from within the context of an issue and from issues list pages. In addition, Oracle Projects enables you to update the ownership of multiple issues at the same time from issues list pages. You

can update ownership for multiple issues from within the project issues list and from cross-project lists of issues. Oracle Projects sends a workflow notification to the new owner when the issue ownership is changed. Resolving and Closing Actions for Issues You can respond to and close only those actions assigned to you. You can access these actions for working issues through the Team Member Home page. Only the issue owner or project manager can cancel open actions and must enter a reason for the cancellation. You can reassign an action to another person. If you reassign an action, a copy of it is created with you identified as the requestor, and the original action is closed. For the reassigned action, you must specify a new Required by Date, but you cannot change the action type and whether or not the action requires signoff. The following table lists action activities and specifies whether or not the identified persons can perform each activity. Issue Activity Create a review action Create an update action Add a response to an action Change status Close an action Owner Yes Yes No Yes No Project Team Member No No No No No Action Assignee Yes No Yes Yes Yes
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Sign off on an action Reassign an action (Review or Update actions) Cancel an action View an action Add a comment to the issue Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No No Yes Yes
Note: Users who have project security access such as super users, users with project authority for an organization, and project managers can perform the same action activities as an issue owner. Resolving Issues The issue owner, project manager, or an assignee of an update action can enter the resolution of an issue. If a resolution is required for an issue, you must enter it before you can close the issue or submit it for approval. Approval of an issue indicates that the approver has reviewed the issue and agrees with the resolution. The issue type determines whether or not an issue requires approval. The approver for your issues is the project manager, by default, but your implementation team may have the approver defined differently. If approval is required, the approver must review and approve the issue before you can close it. If approval is not required, you can close the issue at any time. After the issue is approved, the issue owner receives a notification, and can then change the status to Closed. If the approver rejects the issue resolution, the status is changed to Rejected and the issue must be reworked in order to resubmit it for approval. Note: An issue with open actions cannot be closed or submitted for approval.

Reworking and Canceling Issues The issue owner can rework a submitted, approved, or rejected issue. When you click on the Rework button, it changes the issue status back to Working so that the issue can be modified. The issue owner can also rework an issue that has been closed. You may need to do this if an issue recurs or if it is determined that the issue resolution is not satisfactory. If you cancel an issue, all open actions and pending workflows are canceled, and the status of the issue is changed to Canceled.
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3.0 ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
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III. Analysis/Findings Issue Management In Issue Management the background of Project issues must be identified, managed and resolved throughout the project in order for the project to be successful. Issue management plays an important role in maintaining project stability and efficiency throughout the project lifecycle. It addresses obstacles that can hinder project success and/or block the project team from achieving its goals. These obstacles can include such factors as differences of opinion, situations to be investigated, emerging or unanticipated responsibilities. The purpose of issue management is to identify and document these issues and to resolve them by reviewing and carefully considering all relevant information. To overview the unresolved issues can be a source of conflict that delays or prevents the project team from attaining project goals, milestones, and deliverables. It is the responsibility of the project manager to effectively manage and monitor issues on a regular basis, follow up with issue owners to ensure progress is being made towards resolution, and to report on the status of issues. In addition to overcoming obstacles to success, effective issue management also contributes to having constructive working relationships among the project stakeholders, including the project team. There is often confusion between Issue Management and Risk Management and how the activities of each interface and interact with each other. According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK):
A risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative impact on a project's objectives.
An issue is a point or matter in question or in dispute, or a point or matter that is not settled and is under discussion or over which there are opposing views or disagreements. Often project issues are first identified as a risk and through the risk management planning process may already have a planned approach to managing the issue.
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Project risk management includes the processes for conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, responses, and monitoring and control of a project. The objectives of project risk management are to increase the probability and impact of positive events and decrease the probability and impact of events adverse to project objectives. Project issue management includes utilizing the outputs from the project risk management planning if the issue was identified as a risk during the risk planning processes. As issues arise during the course of managing a project and a project team, an issue log is commonly used to document these issues. This log includes a description of the issue, the assignment of each issue to one or more individuals for resolution, a target date by which the issue needs to be resolved, and other related information. The log helps the project team monitor and control issues until closure is reached. In general, all projects, regardless of type or size, should have an issue tracking system or log where issues are regularly managed and monitored on a regular basis by the project manager. As issues are identified and resolved, the issue log provides historical documentation of concerns that have been addressed throughout the project life cycle. Best Practice for Issue Management:
Escalation Process An issue escalation process should be determined as a part of the overall issue management planning activities and should be documented.
Documentation All issues, regardless of how minor they seem, should be centrally documented using some type of issue tracking system or log. An issue log template is provided at the end of this guide for use in the absence of something more sophisticated.
Minimum Requirements - Tools used to manage issues should contain (at a minimum) a unique identification number, priority, issue description, impact summary, action steps, current status, and issue owner.
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Resolution Statement - Issues should be stated in such a way that it is clear how they can be resolved. Example: Instead of The project needs resources, use The project requires two mid-level Java developers before the first week of January to meet the project delivery date in April.
Prioritization - Issues should be prioritized, assigned specific owners, with next steps and due dates documented. Issue ownership should be communicated clearly to those responsible for action items.
80/20 Rule - Be mindful of the 80/20 rule, which says that 80% of the project impact will come from approximately 20% of the documented issues. Concentrate the majority of mitigation efforts on issues that pose the greatest potential threat to project success.
Regular Review - Regular review of issues and the issue log is a highly recommended practice. The review process should occur daily for complex projects and at least weekly for simple projects. Open issues should be reviewed at each project team status meeting and progress made on the issues should be recorded in the issue log.
Issue History - Closed issues should remain in the issue log as a historical record and to facilitate lessons learned activities.
Practice Activities
Review Issues - Regularly review (at least weekly for a simple project; perhaps daily for a complex project) existing project issues and identify new ones.
Issue Log - Establish and maintain an issue log. Instructions for using the issue log should be provided within the template.
Resolve Issues - Work towards issue resolution, maintaining close collaboration with stakeholders.
Regular Updates - Regularly update (at least weekly for a simple project; perhaps daily for a complex project) the issue log with current information.
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Communicate - Regularly communicate (at least weekly for a simple project; perhaps daily for a complex project) with stakeholders about the status of open issues.
Once an issue has been resolved, an official communication should be sent to stakeholders communicating how the issue was resolved.
Documentation - When an issue is resolved, record the resolution in the issue log. Instructions for recording issue resolution should be provided within the issue log template.
Escalation - If an issue remains unresolved for a lengthy period of time (we may want to specify a time range here), the issue should be escalated using the agreed upon escalation procedure.
Lessons Learned - The issue log should be reviewed at the end of the project in a timely fashion so that lessons learned, can be documented and included in the project's lessons learned analysis.
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4.0 Conclusion
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IV. Conclusion Based on researches, Managers in the 21st century are encountering extremely significant challenges in their process of management in an organization such as hiring and keeping the right employee, building a strategic mindset, crafting an innovative culture and organization, developing system thinking and also getting rid of short term mentality. An organization will need to have a caliber HR manager in order to own a team of committed employees. It is HR managers responsibility to make sure that they hired the right employee because staffs are the most important assets of an organization. Employees not only need to own the profession, experienced but they also need to be readily adapted to the organization culture to allow high productivity, quality performance and also healthy profits. Other than hiring the right employee, managers should also revise their human management skills in dealing with employment issues from time to time to match the changing labor market and working environment to retain those talented employees. They need to realize that the employee is able to work innovatively while the advancement in technology can never replace the ability of that person. In the challenge of building strategic mindset among the employees is important because managers need to use their strength to overcome weakness and also try to turn threats into opportunities. Managers have to communicate the organization vision with the employees to ensure that everyone is sharing the same vision and work towards the same direction. It is also necessary for managers to eliminate the reactive mindset which are decisions made force by the external environment because in the business field, managers should think actively to prevent the occurrence of problems rather than thinking for solutions after the arise of problems. So we there to conclude that Issue Management in Project Management is quite risky when it comes to the issue of economic flow in a certain country. Then it is also considered as a useful tool to maintain innovations through management and skills that farther could be useful not only in Information technology but also in other aspect of courses.
5.0 RECOMMENDATION
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V. Recommendation Upon and after finishing this research, I realize that among of all those different types of Issues management listed above is there is no use of choosing what to recommend as if it all of the topic discussed is quite useful and needed. There are all considered as tool for one`s improvement and changes through innovations. But for me the best issues that turns me on this research was the Issues vs. Risk in Issue Management. A risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative impact on a project's objectives. An issue is a point or matter in question or in dispute, or a point or matter that is not settled and is under discussion or over which there are opposing views or disagreements. Often project issues are first identified as a risk and through the risk management planning process may already have a planned approach to managing the issue. Because as issues arise during the course of managing a project and a project team, an issue log is commonly used to document these issues. This log includes a description of the issue, the assignment of each issue to one or more individuals for resolution, a target date by which the issue needs to be resolved, and other related information. The log helps the project team monitor and control issues until closure is reached.
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2.0 RELATED ISSUES

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If change orders are needed, how will those be handled?

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Materiality Likelihood Extraordinariness

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3.0 ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

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