If there’s one thing we’ve learned watching the Olympics over the past few weeks, it’s that every mistake made at an event of such significance is magnified and fodder for worldwide ridicule in this age of instant information distribution.
This was certainly true for the Sochi Olympic planning committee with regard to the condition of their facilities as guests, athletes and the press started to arrive for the 2014 Winter Olympics. While we recognize the monumental task that hosting an Olympics is, when you sign up for the right to be the host city, you take on the responsibility to make sure your facilities are up to par, as you are subject to scrutiny unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
We have seen that Sochi clearly could have benefited from some more time to complete their facilities, but that they also sorely lacked a comprehensive project plan that included risk management activities such as Facility Inspections and Preventive Maintenance schedules that could have saved them a lot of embarrassment. As we have all seen from the pictures floating around the Internet, from missing door handles to missing walls (in the restrooms no less), conditions ranged from hilarious to downright hazardous. Additionally, many of the complaints coming out of Sochi were that there was no outlet or mechanism for people to log their complaints (i.e. a work order system) and general lack of responsiveness.
Building owners and managers should take note: facility risk management works best when you’re not just reacting to unexpected situations. In fact, the most effective risk management programs capture, track information and provide real-time visibility into all types of potential risk, including helping you identify potential problems before they become an embarrassment…or worse. Perhaps if the Sochi committee had the right property & facilities management tools in place, #sochiproblems would haven’t started trending at record speed.
Check out below some of the most-shared facilities snafus that will be forever identified with the 2014 Sochi Olympics:
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