Concept 1: Demonstrate Empathy – Cut people some slack. Be there for them, listen and empathize with them. Maybe they have lost family members or are worried about elderly and at-risk family members. Perhaps their work-from-home environment is challenging with children needing help, poor internet service, and less-than-ideal work set-up.

So, provide some emotional support, and demonstrate empathy and active listening. Now is not the time to be a stickler on schedule or tasks. Now is the time to show compassion and build a stronger foundation of understanding and trust for future performance.

Concept 2: Take an economic view of decision-making – Social distancing and work-from-home policies have likely blown away your original project plans. We now need to determine what can be done and what should be done first. There will be some tasks that can still proceed, and some opportunity or threat responses than can be pursued…but how do we decide the sequence?

Taking an economic view of decision-making helps with sorting through the options. After reviewing what is possible, ask “Where is the next best dollar spent?” We can then start to prioritize work and match it to availability. The goal is to deliver as much value and make as much progress toward the desired business outcomes as possible.

So, if Activity A has a projected ROI of $15K, Activity B will save $18K in maintenance and Activity C has a 50% chance of returning $32K, prioritize them B, C, A. Share these ideas with the team; we need everyone to adapt and prioritize their time toward the high-value activities.

8 Tips for Reprioritizing

1. Check-in with your sponsors. Explain how you plan to continue working toward the intended business outcomes despite the changes. If appropriate, ask them if there are any new, higher-priority initiatives the team can be helping with. You do not want to be the project still making door handles when the rest of the organization has switched from building cars to ventilators.

2. Scan your WBS or backlog. Can any items of work be pulled forward and worked on remotely? Can some portions of future work be done now and remotely? Usually, we avoid partially completed work as it raises WIP, but these are extraordinary times. If it will need doing and can be done now, it might be the next-best-dollar-spent thing to do.

3. Revisit the vision and business case. Look for untapped opportunities and benefits. Perhaps there are objectives that were not immediately scheduled because they were a lower priority or required skills in short supply back then. Maybe we can find useful activities or different paths to the same goals that might now be viable?

4. Review the risks. Review the risk log to determine if any opportunities can be exploited, shared or enhanced at this time. Do the same with the threats and ask if any could be avoided, reduced or transferred by action that could be done remotely.

5. Communicate to your stakeholders what work can go ahead and what is not happening right now. Keep your communications short; stakeholders likely have plenty of extra work of their own that they are trying to get through. However, provide links to where they can find more information should they want it. So, short announcements and emails, with “more details” links so people can pull more information if necessary.

6. Put it to the team. Do not try and solve everything yourself. Your team members likely have some great ideas, too. Engaging them in finding ways to move forward recognizes their expertise and also demonstrates the desired behavior of asking for input and help.

Ask them what we can be working on. What are the highest value activities that they could be doing right now? Invite them to review the WBS/backlog and risk lists also. Ask about useful maintenance work and new product ideas. How can we use some extra thinking time to emerge stronger?

7. Contact suppliers, vendors and partners. Ask them how they are coping. Maybe there are some easy things we could do to help them. Or, an early heads-up on insolvency is better than learning about it when we need them for something.

Also, ask them for ideas. They likely know aspects of your project very well. Perhaps they can identify valuable work that could be done early. Check their suggestions for validity and self-interest bias. Ordering that flux capacitor jetpack might help them, but does it really help your project and organization right now?

8. Upskill. Use work-from-home time to gain new skills and undertake training. As a minimum, make sure everyone completes their compliance training, which includes working through all the mandatory health, safety and respectful workplace modules. That way, when people return to work, they will not be taking time out to complete these activities later. Then encourage professional development. What new skills, roles or tools would be helpful to learn?

These are challenging times. They are also opportunities to demonstrate desired behaviors. Being compassionate, helpful and understanding in times of stress and hardship are critical. So too is keeping a cool head, being flexible to change and open to help.

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
― Albert Einstein

Thanks for reading, and please share other ideas for us to consider.

[Note: For more articles from Mike Griffiths, visit his blog at www.LeadingAnswers.com. Mike first wrote this article for ProjectManagement.com here]