Remember the good old days when pirates were just Johnny Depp in costume channeling Keith Richards, credit was plentiful and pandemics…well, not many of us even knew the exact definition of the term “pandemic”. Alas, those care-free days are gone. Now all good project managers are updating risk registers to include these and other risks that we would never have anticipated even last year at this time. What becomes clear as time marches on is that we must continue to be diligent in the risk management activities that get too often brushed aside when schedules get crunched and resources get overloaded. In many cases, risk management and good foresight on the part of a project team can help to minimize these crunches later in the project.

Just as Philip Crosby maintained that quality of free (in his book Quality is Free and because no one heeded his warning the first time, again in its sequel, Quality Is Still Free), risk management is also free. The amount of time and effort your project team spends identifying, analyzing, qualifying, quantifying and responding to risks will be returned to the project by having an appropriate contingency reserve for schedule and budget and a solid contingency plan ready to go when the worst happens. This is so important I will say it again: Risk management is FREE!

But wait just a minute. Am I really saying that risk management activities conducted a year ago when a project began would allow us to weather the economic, political and health climate of today? Yes! I am really saying it. Stop rolling your eyes and read on. While you may not have identified the exact risks that we face as issues today, you should have some contingency allocated for “unknown unknowns” – the unexpected that seems to happen on any project. For example, no project team (unless you have a staff psychic or consult the prophesies of Nostradamus) would have predicted that the H1N1 influenza virus would cause the recent health scares we are seeing around the world, but a good project team would absolutely identify as a risk that key resources may not be available for project work, or that travel may be restricted – either due to economic restrictions, safety conditions, or global unrest. Let’s face it, if we work on global projects, chances are that some area of the world at any point in time will have some political unrest that may impact travel and resource availability. Even if the risk isn’t specific, you know enough to predict something.   

So, now that we know the specific risks we face, because they are issues for some of us, what do we do about it? Company policies toward the pandemic are changing on a daily basis. Many organizations have halted all international travel, others have just stopped travel to Mexico. Still others have even limited domestic travel. This means no travel for training, meetings, site visits, vendor audits…all of those activities that tend to be essential to completing most projects. This means that we do everything we can by phone, e-mail and video conferencing. WebEx, GoTo Meeting and other real-time collaboration software can bridge the gap in the meantime, allowing teams around the world to view the same screen, hear the same information and communicate live, without risking health and costing thousands of dollars in travel expenses. Clearly, we can’t conduct all of our business remotely, but it can be an effective stop-gap measure until we can travel again.

Does your project expect a cargo ship to deliver equipment or materials for your project? What measures will the shipping company take to avoid delays due to pirate-infested waters? What delivery times can you expect? Are you getting tissue or other biological materials shipped across a border? Customs procedures may now delay the arrival of your shipment if they put measures in place to test or verify contents or if quarantine policies take effect. The more you know about your shipping company and the customs policies and practices of the countries you work with, the more likely you are to anticipate problems and mitigate risks. If customs from one country are becoming too unreliable or time-intensive, look for another supplier locally or from a country with faster processing times.

Are you dependent on credit to fund all or part of your project? For small companies with lower revenues or recently-established lines of credit, you may get notification from the bank with no notice that your line of credit has been lowered or eliminated completely. Would you still be able to complete your project scope? What would the impact be to the Triple Constraint? Regardless of where the funding is coming from, every project should explore the risk of limited or cut funds. Even if your project is not dependent on credit, many organizations are cutting back on investments in new projects. What if your project lost 10% of its budget? Would you know how to respond?

In good times or in bad project teams should prepare for the inevitability of change. Regardless of the ever-changing source of these risks, risks are always there. It is the superior project team plans and budgets for them. Now…where’s my antibacterial hand sanitizer?