Activities needing proximity

This article belongs to a series about Project Risk Management, with special focus on the COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences on Projects. If you want to start from the beginning, here is the main question: will your project survive the pandemic?

Lockdown measures make many activities impossible, and there is not a viable virtual alternative for all of them.

The risk

Reaching the workplace is usually allowed even under the toughest restrictions, but there might be activities in your plan that could be singled out as not strictly necessary, and therefore be subject to restrictions even if they are "work" - or would simply not make sense in the current situation:

• mystery shopping
• social events
• street interviews
• street advertising
• ...and many more

If your plan included such activities, it goes without saying: there is a risk that it will not be possible to carry out these activities.

Depending on the timeline of your projects, you might already have a clear and present issue (if they are supposed to happen in the short term) or it might be just a risk (in case they are not planned in the immediate future).

How bad is it?

The evaluation of probability and impact are strictly related to when the activities are planned, and how crucial they are to achieve your goals.

None of us can predict how long the containment measures like travel bans and lockdowns will stay with us, but the sooner your activities are planned, the higher the probability that they will be affected. There is also another factor to weigh in when calculating the probability, and the good news are that it's much easier to evaluate: how vital are project goals in order to ensure the functioning of our society? And, if the goals are really that important, how crucial are the activities in ensuring the success of your project? The answer to those questions radically affects the probability that, even in the middle of a lockdown period, the activities are still allowed. Moreover, in answering these questions you have already made a first step to evaluate the impact - the rest depends on the project, its goals and the solutions you have planned to achieve them.

What to do about it?

One way to avoid the risk would be to simply cancel the activities. It might also be possible to perform them in a hurry, before restrictive measures are enforced, but this could result in a reputational gamble. In some of the examples provided above, the same results could be perhaps bought: what if you planned to do a market analysis by yourself (e.g. including street interviews and mystery shopping), but a market study with the insights you need is available for purchase? This would be another way to avoid the risk.

On the other hand, you might want to accept the risk and plan a corrective action in advance, such as replacing those activities with alternatives that can ensure completion of the project and achievement of goals, but in a way that is compatible with the extraordinary situation. Is this different from the interview-vs-market study example given before? In practice, it is the same action - but, in terms of planning, if you accept the risk you stick to your original plan until you are certain that you cannot do it anymore. All in all, it is a matter of cost and time, and how quick your organization is in switching from one activity plan to another.

Transferring the risk does not seem to be a viable option, unless a monetary compensation would really satisfy your project needs - but, in this case, it would make sense only if you can buy a solution. Again, referring to the interview-vs-market study example, the setup would be even more complicated: you outsource the interviews and put a penalty in the contract in case they fail to deliver, and use the money to buy a market study.

Last but not least, the most obvious thing would be to mitigate the risk by postponing the activities. But how would you fix the new date? Restrictions are usually announced with an expiration date, and you might be tempted to use that date as a good, solid, facts-based evaluation: but seriously, do you consider it a realistic prediction? Is it really a good foundation for a plan? I would personally not take it that way, but I must also admit that it is practically impossible to figure out a reliable date, and plans have this unnerving characteristic: a date is a date is a date, and no way to make a plan without it. So what? Just use your best judgement for the new dates, but you must absolutely declare them for what they are: working assumptions. Declare those expectations, describe your criteria for taking them, and report the risk that they might be wrong (with a further delay). It would definitely make sense to couple this strategy with a proactive plan for adequate corrective measures, just in case the new schedule proves to be too optimistic.