🕐 08:00-09:25

Registration

🕐 09:25-09:50

Welcome remarks - Monsters lurking

🞇 Sheilina Somani

There’s an anonymous quotation that states “everyone smiles in the same language.” But do they? In opening APM’s 2024 Risk Management Conference; Sheilina Somani seeks to ignite discussion around engagement and delivery for effective Humanitarian projects. Tread carefully, there may be monsters in our midst!

🕐 09:50-10:35

Opening keynote: The ethics of crisis management

🞇 Professor Fiona Macaulay, University of Bradford

Whose knowledge, experience, labour, and wellbeing counts in the management of a crisis, and in the identification and mitigation of risk? This talk will look particularly at ethics through a gendered lens.

🕐 10:35-11:15

Human behaviour

🞇 Assistant Commissioner Pat Goulbourne, London Fire Brigade

🕐 11:15-11:45

Networking break

🕐 11:45-12:30

Lunchtime keynote: The human side of decision making in a crisis

🞇 Dr Scilla Elworthy

In order to avoid disastrous mistakes, decision making in a crisis requires 4 key skills: 1. Having mastered the art of breathing deeply when challenged; 2. the ability to listen very carefully to what others need, beneath their emotions; 3. to be aware of your own anger and clean it up; 4. to use Right Brain Intelligence to break the cycle of violence.

I shall then elaborate on this last issue: What AI cannot do and what HI (Heart Intelligence) CAN do. There is, at this moment in human history, an extraordinary opportunity for human development: and that is to demonstrate, recognise and use the intelligence of the heart. While AI may decrease the relevance of the human brain, we know that the intelligence of the human heart cannot be taught to a machine. Ponder this: can the human capacity for intuition, for example, or integrity, or compassion, be replaced by a machine? I shall set out why the intelligence and capacities of the heart become what put us humans ahead of the machine, when it really matters!

🕐 12:30-13:30

Lunch

🕐 13:30-14:05

Stream 1 - Human crisis

🞇 Richard Gordon MBE, Director of Bournemouth University Disaster Management Centre (BUDMC)

The good news is that most countries impacted by natural disasters are not left alone. National governments, international responders, and non governmental organisations all commit themselves to arrive in-country as quickly as possible to deliver humanitarian assistance operations. From a project manager’s perspective this raises a number of interesting challenges. 

Stream 2 - Risk management in maritime search and rescue

🞇 Chris Blockley-Webb, Turner & Townsend

When it goes well and it goes wrong! - we take a brief look at the impacts of the Human Element on practitioners in the maritime SAR operations world.

🕐 14:05-14:45

Crisis management within P3M

🞇 Craig Forson, Turner & Townsend

Using his experience in the construction industry Craig will provide an overview of how crisis’s can develop in the project environment including recognising the potential signs of a project in distress, what part risk management plays and steps which can support prevention.

🕐 14:45-15:10

Networking break

🕐 15:10-16:05

Panel discussion: Fight to survive, or survive to fight

🞇 Clive Martin, Head of the Government Risk Profession  🞇 Fiona Davidge, Head of Risk & Insurance for the Royal British Legion  🞇 Sheilina Somani

We look at what drives us in a crisis, what is a crisis? What behaviours do we display? Do we fight to survive, or do we survive to fight and bring order and sensibility to chaos? - Join our panel and engage in an open discussion about how a core human instinct and our professional beliefs can collide.

🕐 16:05-16:45

Closing keynote: Using AI to forecast and de-risk project delivery

🞇 Dev Amratia, CEO and Co-Founder, nPlan

This talk will explore how AI can reliably quantify delay risk and provide actionable insights to project teams, including the potential impact this could have with insurers and project financiers.

🕐 16:45-17:00

Closing remarks

🞇 Gareth Pugsley, Learning Curve Group  🞇 Chris Blockley-Webb, Turner & Townsend 
🞇 Sara Rye, University of Bradford

This session synthesises and expands on the key insights from the day, collecting diverse perspectives and actionable takeaways to further refine the strategies discussed earlier. The reflection points session at the conference emphasises the critical importance of adaptive leadership, stakeholder collaboration, and agile project management in responding to crises.