Red teaming isn’t
perfect, but used well it can save your project. The military, as
Hoffman points out in the introduction, has a long history of using
red teams. Recently their training program has been formalized.
Hoffman was lucky to be allowed to attend a session to use the
experience to bring red teaming to industry.
In addition to
recounting the history of red teaming, Hoffman shares his experience
in the military training course. This part of the book is filled with
interesting anecdotes showing how red teaming, primarily in the
military, has been used to save a planned troop exercise, or actual
war situation.
In the second part
of the book, Hoffman describes the tools used by the red team to
facilitate critical thinking, come up with creative solutions, and
stress the assumptions of the project to assure that all bases have
been covered. He also describes the type of individuals best suited
to read teaming. These need to be sharp people, good at critical
thinking who are not easily cowed by upper management.
I loved the book.
Having been involved in extensive projects in industry, I can see how
valuable this type of exercise can be in relooking a proposed plan or
project. Too often, the planners get so involved in how to make the
plan work that they narrow their focus and miss the ways the plan or
project can fail.
I highly recommend
this book, if you’re responsible for developing a plan in a large
corporation, or if you own a business and want to assure the success
of your plans for the future. It’s important to realize that some
of the techniques don’t require large expenditures to be
successful. Anyone can do it and with practice can become good at it.
I received this book
from Blogging for Books for this review.
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