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Hi everyone, here is Ricardo Vargas and this is the 5 Minutes Podcast. Today I like to talk about challenges and crisis and why I want to talk about this because many times I hear people saying Oh my project is in deep trouble. My project is in crisis. I am in a permanent crisis mode and then I want to ask you every time you hear this or every time you think about that that you give one step back and start reflecting. Am I really in crisis? Or is this just what is project management is about and why I want to say this because first there is no easy project. Forget that. There is no easy project because every single project we do they are borderline of what is possible and impossible. I recorded many videos talking about that, so there is nothing easy because honestly speaking, if the project is easy and if every project. It's easy. Why do we have project? I understand. Because if it's easy, why do you need to plan? Why do you need to analyze risks if there is no risk? So projects are naturally a challenge? Remember that so every time it's normal that your project is delayed, it's normal that you have challenges. With stakeholders, it's normal that you face risks. This is normal. This is part of the DNA of every single. Project. So what is a crisis? A crisis is when these conditions they exceed any ability of you handle the change. It's something so massive that you cannot tolerate. For example, the project being late. One day or two days, maybe it's normal. I'm not saying you like the project to be late one day or two days. I'm not saying that, but what I am saying is that it's normal. OK. It's impossible for you. Look, when a project is so perfect, you know I say. Are you sure this is not something you know? It looks fishy. It's so strange, right when I say that because it's so perfect and projects are not perfect. You plan because you are trying to make some boundaries. But you are. Not trying to make a perfect schedule or a perfect sharp. But. Up to the dollar level, just do not happen and if happens in your project, please comment because I want to learn from you because I never saw that happening. However, crisis is when your level of tolerance is exceeded. When there is a delay or when there is a budget. Challenge or there is a risk that normal procedures that normal control measures that normal communication processes are not enough. You need just to break everything and change your behavior. So let me. Give you a couple of examples. Let's suppose your project is an industrial project. You have. An accident and it's not an incident, but an accident. Where you have. Victims you have, for example, a collapse of something. Look. This drives you to the crisis mode because the way you communicate that the way you manage stakeholders, the way you manage the schedule of your project changes completely. Because that incident brought to you almost instantaneously to a crisis. Mode in a crisis mode requires divesting on something, investing on another thing, changing leadership, changing the way you handle the project. Make many other rests just irrelevant, just irrelevant, because you are now in crisis mode. For example, when an airplane crashes or when an industry has a massive accident, this drives you to the crisis mode. But the normal project operations are not on crisis mode and why this is important because if you create a mindset that every single day, every time you wake up, brush your teeth, put your clothes and go to the project, you are in crisis mode, you will have. Myopia to see when a real crisis happens because every time I go to work, I'm paid by my clients to solve problems. This is my job. This is my. Job as a project manager, as a consultant in the field, you know nobody calls me and say ohh that everything is perfect Recaro, I want you to come here and just check. So the challenge is natural. The crisis is something that requires and special set of tools and behavior. Here so you need to understand because I see companies delaying the project by 0.1% and say we are in crisis or exceeding the budget by, you know, almost nothing and we are in crisis. Look, are you really in crisis? Why this is so important? Because we need to manage stress because together with crisis, there is a massive level of stress project managers, they are very good and they decided to have this position and this profession because they handle stress in a better way. Otherwise, they would choose another profession, but managing a crisis is not sustainable in the long run. So crisis you really need to understand when you are in one and you cannot have a crisis every single day because if your company has crisis on top of crisis. On top of prices, your company is not sustainable. Having one crisis here, one crisis there, one problem here, one big problem there. It's OK. But if you live in a crisis mode, then the level of stress you are managing is unsustainable. This is why, for example, people lose employees, people. Lose credit because people start to have this belief in your ability to manage, and many times it's self-inflicted. It's your behavior toward the normal challenge that transforms the challenge into a crisis. Think a lot about that. We manage challenges. We manage crisis only in very exceptional cases. That will require a completely different behavior. From us, think about that until next week with another 5 Minutes podcast.
