How to make contingency plans and avoid a costly accident
by Chas Castell
In project management there is something called contingency planning. You make a plan that can effectively respond to outcomes that are different to what were expected in the original plan. An evacuation plan in LA offices is a contingency plan. No one goes into working expecting an earthquake, but in the event of one happening all businesses want to be prepared. In my musical career I was caught out years ago when a drummer I was working with forgot to bring his snare to a show. The mistake was as much mine in not ensuring beforehand that either the venue had a spare snare drum, or that I brought a snare drum myself – i.e. I should have assumed that he would forget his snare, and prepare for that eventuality.
More recently, it is also my fault that I lost a lot of work (and a piece of my soul) when my hard drive decided to die. I hadn’t backed up. I hadn’t planned for the hard drive failing. When my second laptop hard drive decided to fail, I realised the Universe was laughing at me. Here is a self-proclaimed project manager whose data management plans don’t assume technology will fail. Well, now they do.
The phrase I have started to say to myself is ‘it’s not “if”, it’s “when”’. Things break. Stuff happens. Life is more always expensive and more time consuming than we expect. As good project managers it is our responsibility to think ahead and make contingency plans.
If we want our musical careers to grow, then our output must grow. For our output to grow, that means our team has to grow, since there is a ceiling to how much one person can do, no matter how dedicated. If our team grows, then we will have to delegate – and manage – others. If we manage others, there will be invariably be things that they don’t or can’t do to the level we expect. While effective management of others is a whole other topic, the benefits of contingency planning remain true in management too: by building in contingencies for what to do when others are not able to perform the tasks you need them to (it’s more likely that they cannot perform the tasks when you want them to), you will give yourself that added buffer to make sure you – and they – can get the results you need.
For example, budgeting an extra day for album deliverables (and not telling anyone) because your musical artist changes the scope for her logo at the eleventh hour, or your graphic artist hasn’t allocated enough time to finish the original artwork, or UPS is on strike and cannot mail the CDs in the 2 day window. Make a good contingency plan, and the only surprises you’ll have will be nice ones, when things work out better than you thought they would.
So no more complaining that somebody let you down, or that something broke and ground everything to a halt, or that you’re just ‘unlucky’ and the Universe has it in for you. If there are mistakes because you didn’t plan ahead, own them. Because if your contingencies are already planned, nothing can stop you – and your team – moving forward.
In project management there is something called contingency planning. You make a plan that can effectively respond to outcomes that are different to what were expected in the original plan. An evacuation plan in LA offices is a contingency plan. No one goes into working expecting an earthquake, but in the event of one happening all businesses want to be prepared. In my musical career I was caught out years ago when a drummer I was working with forgot to bring his snare to a show. The mistake was as much mine in not ensuring beforehand that either the venue had a spare snare drum, or that I brought a snare drum myself – i.e. I should have assumed that he would forget his snare, and prepare for that eventuality.
More recently, it is also my fault that I lost a lot of work (and a piece of my soul) when my hard drive decided to die. I hadn’t backed up. I hadn’t planned for the hard drive failing. When my second laptop hard drive decided to fail, I realised the Universe was laughing at me. Here is a self-proclaimed project manager whose data management plans don’t assume technology will fail. Well, now they do.
The phrase I have started to say to myself is ‘it’s not “if”, it’s “when”’. Things break. Stuff happens. Life is more always expensive and more time consuming than we expect. As good project managers it is our responsibility to think ahead and make contingency plans.
If we want our musical careers to grow, then our output must grow. For our output to grow, that means our team has to grow, since there is a ceiling to how much one person can do, no matter how dedicated. If our team grows, then we will have to delegate – and manage – others. If we manage others, there will be invariably be things that they don’t or can’t do to the level we expect. While effective management of others is a whole other topic, the benefits of contingency planning remain true in management too: by building in contingencies for what to do when others are not able to perform the tasks you need them to (it’s more likely that they cannot perform the tasks when you want them to), you will give yourself that added buffer to make sure you – and they – can get the results you need.
For example, budgeting an extra day for album deliverables (and not telling anyone) because your musical artist changes the scope for her logo at the eleventh hour, or your graphic artist hasn’t allocated enough time to finish the original artwork, or UPS is on strike and cannot mail the CDs in the 2 day window. Make a good contingency plan, and the only surprises you’ll have will be nice ones, when things work out better than you thought they would.
So no more complaining that somebody let you down, or that something broke and ground everything to a halt, or that you’re just ‘unlucky’ and the Universe has it in for you. If there are mistakes because you didn’t plan ahead, own them. Because if your contingencies are already planned, nothing can stop you – and your team – moving forward.