In the previous months terror plots were thwarted. Suspicious packages containing explosives were seized by US authorities. These led to Home Security Department (HSD) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to tighter security at airports, border crossings and railroads.
Just recently, TSA introduced Advance Imaging Technology (AIT), also known as full body scanner technology, to screen travelers and detect potential threats concealed underneath passengers’ clothing. Although this screening is optional, passengers may choose the alternate physical pat down screening. Both methods had created controversy and a lot of media coverage.
Depending on the machine used the full body scanner image may resembles a fuzzy photo negative with facial features blurred for privacy or a chalk etching with a privacy filter applied to the entire body. Passengers consider this scanning as invasion of privacy even when images are neither stored nor transmitted and are remotely monitored for analysis to determine whether objects are present.
Meeting the stakeholder’s expectations in a project is critical, there may be times that not all stakeholders get the expected level of satisfaction and may cause the project to fail. While aviation industry, government and political institutions are satisfied with the methods selected the passengers or end users are not.
How to increase the stakeholder’s level of satisfaction?
Project management, as a discipline, should consider not only technology but also other factors like culture and interpersonal interactions. Proxemics, studies space in interpersonal relationships. This space is the non-transgressible distance one stands from another person while interacting, which varies from culture to culture.
In Edward T. Hall’s book, The Hidden Dimension (1990, pp 125-128), he defines the term personal space as the region surrounding each person, or the area which a person considers their domain or territory. Often if entered by another being without this being desired, it makes them feel uncomfortable.
The amount of space a being needs falls into two categories:
- Immediate individual physical space (determined by imagined boundaries);
- The space an individual considers theirs to live in (often called habitat).
The American culture sets its immediate individual physical space around the body at about 25 inches. This explains why passengers and TSA agents are uncomfortable during pat-down screenings.
America and other nations are facing uncertain times. Protecting a nation is certainly a project that may negatively impact some stakeholders an even when the project would be mindful and respectful or empathetic toward stakeholders the objective is to avoid potential terrorist attacks to the nation.