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Discover the Secretes to Project Crisis Management

Even when you have a clear vision and have utilized effective project management approaches sometimes crisis happen. How you handle the crisis can make the difference between project success and failure.

Here are five tips that can help you to effectively handle any crises, whether it’s technical, financial, or related to human resource.

1. Adopt a Discipline Approach

A disciplined approach is necessary to ensure that you don’t get distracted with the problems. The fact is that any crisis creates a chaotic environment. You will feel like running in different directions putting out the fire. At this moment, you need to be clear headed and take a disciplined approach. Avoid getting too emotional when facing the crises as it will only burn you out. You need to think rationally and commit your time in minimizing the damage due to the uneventful situation.

2. Plan Thoroughly but Act Quickly

You need to invest time and effort in thinking out the right tactics to alleviate anxiety and support the teams. This is essential to developing an effective plan that will help in getting the team back on track. However, once you have come up with a crises management plan, it’s essential to act quickly. The longer that you wait, the more will be the damage.

3. Create a Crisis Management Team

Informing the staff about the crises management plan is not enough. You need to create a dedicated and trained crisis management team to implement the plan. The team can be anywhere between 2 to 20 or more people depending on the scope of the project. In this respect, you should use an effective online project management software to manage the team. Using the right team management software will help in better coordinating the efforts of the team.

4. Avoid Panic within the Team

The feeling of panic within the project team is normal in the event of a crisis. However, it’s the task of a project manager to ensure that there is no panic. And for this you need to calm down and think rationally about the crises at hand. The calm feeling will trickle down to the team members.

5. Contain the Crises

Crises can’t be prevented. In some cases, it’s inevitable. However, actions can be taken to contain the effects of the crises. For this, you need to gather accurate data, and use the right tools. You should find out the ramifications of the crises, and act decisively behaving in a disciplined manner. The elements you should contain in the face of a crisis include:

• threat to the project success
• impact of the crises
• delays in project
• cost overruns

And above all remember that crises management requires timely support from the stakeholders. Make sure that you inform them of the event, the consequences or impact, and what actions you are taking to contain the crisis.