STRATEGICALLY PROJECT MANAGE PANDEMIC AS YOU WORK FROM HOME

Now you must have heard this word if you have been watching and listening to the news “Unprecedented” several times and everyone uses it to describe the time we all live in. As a result, we are now locked indoors working from home. Many thoughts before now about the idea of working remote, now we are living it, real time. Here is the question, how can we as project management expert manage our sanity and still be more productive?

Instead of complaining and becoming glooming about it, there are four important areas of life that we can give a careful consideration and get to work as soon as possible, because no one knows for sure, how long this lock down will last. The earlier we have a working plan, the better, so that the plan can work for you. I would like to share just 4 areas: health, family, goals and plans.

Health

The well-being of our family and loved ones comes first. We are all familiar with the adage “Health is wealth” this is the time we experience the reality of this axiom. We all treasure our health and will do everything practical to keep it safe, sound and healthy.

As we shelter in, we pay attention to the old hygiene practice; wash your hand, do not touch your face and practice social distancing. At this point, with World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 data, we work to abide by the “prevention is better cure” attitude. We keep these health professional and governmental authority guidelines as shield to sustain and maintain our well-being. This risk avoidance strategy should be no brainer.

There is a lot of advantages to abiding by these guidelines; we save time and money as we do with our projects. Time for productive activities and not for quarantining, money for basic necessities and not for experimenting with medicine that looks promising but might not work. We also add value as we improve our professional skills by contributing good results as we climb the professional ladder, helping our families and organizations grow to new heights.

If we strive to remain healthy, we keep ourselves in good shape for other economic activities and benefits. Please remember the gap between being healthy and sickness is just a breath away. It is very important that you listen, obey and apply these guidelines, no matter how strict they may appear to the many; as a project leader, risk avoidance and mitigation are better options than risk acceptance, when it is a matter of life and death.

Family

As we care for the project resources and stakeholders on our projects, we should also give similar attention to our family members, loved ones and neighbors. This is one way we can adapt and professionalize humanity within the project management framework, I mean in your everyday living.

To our immediate family members, we want to educate them regarding the safety guidelines. We must inculcate the guidelines by starting with the basics; hand washing, sanitizing, cleaning and wiping surfaces to disposing trash as soon as they accumulate. We can also take a step further, since we will not be doing a lot of food take outs again, can we experiment with cooking nutritious meals at home again. As a project management expert, turn these cooking initiatives into a family project. Define the scope of healthy and nutritious food, shop for nice fruits, perform cost estimation and independent estimates and compare these results with eating out. Apply stakeholder management and look at the benefits of cooking at home and long-term savings to the family.

For most schools in the area, the kids are out for the rest of the year. You will need to draw a project schedule for their daily activities. This should encompass what they do at school and will like to enjoy at home. Visiting school websites, talking to their teachers and buying supporting textbook to help them in their academic is very important. You want to keep the minds of these kids sharp as much as possible. You can begin experimenting with home schooling. Analyze their individual situations as you would your stakeholder management. Please take into consideration quality management as you plan their meal, academic and entertainment. Remember “all work and no play make every kid a dull kid.” [Italics mine]. Remember, with this pandemic, 2020 summer be a lukewarm winter!

Love of the community will not be overemphasized. Please take inventory of people around you that need to be contacted; and check on their well-being. Remember, as a project manager, you communicate 90% of the time. So now, put your communication hat on, practice it with love, kindness, empathy and sense of community for your friends, co-workers, neighbors, relatives, old school mates, member of your religious organization and see how you can volunteer your time as well, Sending cards and letter writing will be appropriate in these instances.

You should be creative as you explore these various options, because there is a lot of happiness in giving than receiving. Please start today.

Goals

We always plan for the successful end in view, this includes things we have in the order of priority, our health, family, career and future plans. We can spend quality time to revise individual goals around these items. When we perform risk analysis, we look at SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities & Threat) Analysis; we can use this as the framework to refine our goals. You can also adopt the fishbone diagram to define cause and effect so that you can filter the best worthwhile goals that will benefit your health, family, goals and the future plans. These are recommended tools because it will keep you focused on the important subject at hand. It also stimulates your creativity for better results.

I want to assume that you and your family health conditions are in good shape because of the various strategies you have adopted as this pandemic grapples the human society. We mentioned “Prevention is better than cure” mantra; you might want to explore how this will become your family principle or code of conduct everyone in your household live by, so that you can save on unnecessary hospital bills, needless prescriptions and visit to Emergency Rooms (ER). This is called ground rule in project management. You can brand it as a “FGR” – Family Ground Rules”

That settled, we need to focus on career, you already know that “no condition is permanent” as with technology, it continues to experience growth virtually every six to nine months or less within the past two decades. Here are the thought provoking questions; how do I reposition my career for the next five years? As technology undergo rebirth, so is the current workplace in the face of globalization. You might want to keep exploring what will interest you career-wise in years to come?

Try and remember these revolutions; the birth of Internet gave rise to globalization. The incubation of email technology success gave rise to the cloud technology. Corporate organizations have been investing massively in artificial Intelligence that includes machine learning and deep learning. So where do you fit in the frame of reference as this wind of change gather momentum and sweep through the labor landscape. Just like mailman and secretary career was erased by the arrival of email system, what current opportunity will be wiped by artificial intelligence? You will want to spend some quality time during this period to have productive goals lined up backed by definite action. A careful research of new career fields should attract your curiosity. Remember, there is no excuse for not taking action, this is a blessing in disguise. You call this a positive risk or what? Then act as appropriate to your situation.

Remember, there is no traffic, Dentist appointment or school run that will distract you. You must define these goals as soon as you are done reading this blog, if you do not already have one to update.

Future Plans

I know from experience that no projects are alike. There is no doubt that we agree on this fact. Yet, we enjoy the challenges each project brings each time we are assigned one or when we successfully complete them. The same principle applies to this pandemic. It will come and go.

We have seen them all, SARS, Bird flu, H1N1 and Ebola. They shook the world when they came, we mourn, we cried, yet dust ourselves up and we moved on because we survived, by virtue of our leadership training we become resilient. This current COVID-19 will wreak its havoc, as currently being experienced and it will soon pass, until another time. Since we know the cycle, we want to remain optimistic just as we have been for each assigned project in the past two decades.

You need to have solid future plans for the key areas we been talking about. You cannot postpone them again. Remember, you have the time for it. Base your assumption on the fact that the future will be tough, but you will be successful. That is a simple definition of optimism. Plan for the best, work for the best by addressing risk and defining ways to deal with difficulties; this what we described as “prepare for the worst” because most times, they may not happened, but for the fact that you have a Plan B or Plan C in place makes your future a solid future plan.

Please make the best use of this pandemic house arrest called “stay at home” for the best of your future and for your family. As you can see, once again, project management to the rescue.