Dealing with disaster

Into each life a little rain must fall—though sometimes it’s a monsoon. No matter how well you plan, you never know when disaster will strike and render all those plans useless. When that happens, giving up can seem like the best option—but it rarely is. You can take steps to minimize the impact, move ahead, and maybe even come out better in the long run.

Take a deep breath. Unless it’s an actual life-threatening emergency, you probably have time to pause and think before rushing into anything. Gather as much information as possible, assess the situation, and determine just how deep and how long the effects of this disruption will be. Is it a minor blip, merely annoying in the general scheme of things? Or is it something catastrophic that will cause major changes to plans, timelines, deadlines, and deliverables? Is it going to affect the entire project, or are there some pieces that could be isolated from the effects?

Deal with the disaster. In addition to completing the project that was interrupted, you most likely will have to deal with whatever caused the disruption. Is there a way you can defer or delegate one or the other? Or can another part of your responsibilities be put on hold for the short term? Prioritize what needs to be done immediately, what can be delayed for a short time, and what needs to be put on indefinite hold. As plans change, make sure all the appropriate people are involved and informed, so they can adjust their processes appropriately.

Build slush into your schedule. Whenever possible, build extra time into your schedule to allow for unexpected delays. You may not know exactly what is going to happen, but often something will happen to hold things up. Work ahead as much as possible, especially parts of the project that are unlikely to change. For example, when writing a grant proposal, sections such as the background and biographies can be written way ahead of time, while budget numbers may be volatile and need to be adjusted just before submission.

Backup person. Always have a backup person ready to go in case the main one becomes unavailable. Especially on large projects, there should never be a single point of failure. At least two people should always know the status and details of everything, be copied on all communications, have permissions and passwords to access data, be aware of project deadlines, and so on. They should both have relationships with everyone on the main project team and at least be familiar with members of cooperating teams.

Backup plans. Throughout the project, consider all the possibilities of what might happen to negatively impact progress, and how you would mitigate that impact. Create alternative and backup plans and make sure they are realistic. If something does happen, you can pull out whichever backup plan is most relevant and adapt it to the current situation. Having a place to start will allow you to recover much more quickly.

Part of being a professional is persevering and succeeding in the face of unanticipated obstacles. If you hope for the best, but plan for the worst, you will set yourself up for success, no matter what life throws at you.

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