Happy New Year to you, Friend!

I hope you had a relaxing and invigorating break over the holidays. Mine was very enjoyable with family and one relative from out of town.  But honestly, it was hard to have the extended low productivity... I was itching to get back to more work. 

For the past week I've been doing exactly that.  And I have something important I want to share with you.

In my previous email, I told you how the commercial drone revolution is advancing incredibly fast.  A lot of existing companies are skipping over the outsourcing option to use drones.  They figure that the ultimate end state will be owning their own internal drone operation.  So let's just get started with it now.

On the first assumption, I believe they are right.  Drones are going to be as plentiful as photocopiers -- another essential piece of equipment for industrial companies and agencies. 

But they are learning very quickly that drones are a different animal. This past month, I had someone from a city department get in touch with me to share the exciting news that he had received approval to acquire TWO drones for his department!  Problem was... they hadn't thought very far ahead of that!

Once the drones arrive, are there any local training programs or schools available? Is there some list of all the essential non-drone things they should think about?  Like insurance... registrations... documentation... emergency procedures... training on all of this stuff?!

It would be very embarrassing and disappointing (plus wasteful and career-limiting) for this person to crash the new $1,500 drone that has so much potential to help their operations.

In another related story that made our local news in Sacramento, the County Police were in final discussion with a large drone service company to start using drones in their operations.  But just over the holidays the initiative was SHUT DOWN.  (That's what made the news.) 

The reason was, someone with a strong sense of budgeting and project planning asked a lot of tough (but very valid) questions.  They learned that this department didn't have a comprehensive plan for training, ongoing costs, ROI projections, safety procedures...

Sounds like a common theme, right?  That's what I've been thinking and seeing.

Drones are not a magic tool that automatically fly and give you what you want.  Not yet anyway...

And if things go wrong, there can be very serious consequences.  Besides the loss of your investment, there could be significant damage to other property.  Or injuries to people. 

If an employee of your company causes injury to a "civilian" when they are doing company business, you just cost your company a whole lot more money than a drone will return for you - for a long time. 

And once something bad happens, it gets more bad attention.  If you aren't following proper safety procedures and the new FAA laws, they have Congressional authority to issue civil fines up to $50,000.  That's a real damper on your business case...

If you do something REALLY BAD & STUPID - like violate a security-related TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) - you just exposed yourself to criminal punishment of up to 1 YEAR IN FEDERAL PRISON and/or a $100,000 FINE.

That got your attention I bet!

Then there's the additional risk that you can make the news with your company -- for all the wrong reasons.  Negative brand impact is hard to put a price on, but we know it's BAD.

So this is not like buying a photo copier in the early days of that technology. :-)

To help companies avoid these big risks and negative consequences (and YOU if you want to bring drones into your company), I have made a list of the 4 BIGGEST MISTAKES companies are making when they start to bring drones into their business.

Over the holidays I was thinking a lot about this situation.  First I brainstormed on all of these mistakes that are happening and things that COULD go wrong.  Then I spent a lot of time to funnel them down and reduce them to the smallest, most essential and powerful list I could get.

I'll admit, it was a good mental exercise to apply my root cause analysis training, systems engineering background, and project management experience.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein

That's what I've worked hard to do here for you. :-)

By the end of the month, I will be emailing you the full presentation.  But because I don't want your New Year to get off to a really bad start, I wanted to put these thoughts in your head as soon as I could. 

The 4 biggest mistakes are:
1. A bad or inadequate rationale for using drones
2. Not starting with the right people on the team
3. Poor project management
4. Not thinking and acting like a startup

There is a lot more to say about each of these... and I have specific recommendations and go-to resources for each point. You will get all of that in the presentation. 

I encourage you to ponder over this list in the meantime.  Until you hear from me again -

Take care and take charge,
 Brett

 Brett Hoffstadt, PMP
 brett@creative-forces.net
 @BrettRocketSci