Spending time preparing a contingency plan may appear to be a complete waste of time, as learnt in project management certification online. After all, there appear to be so many other things that have much greater importance than planning for dangers that may or may not occur does not appear to be a wise use of time.
I must admit that I fell into this group when I first began out and keeping a risk journal seemed like a foreign notion to me. This can certainly appear to be a sensible shortcut when challenged by a subset of project managers who are process-bound and spend an excessive amount of time-escalating risks while designing ever more intricate contingency plans. However, in my 13 years of interim project management, I've found that project managers who entirely avoid this are merely storing difficulties for the future.
The crucial point to remember, as learned in project management certification online, is that merely performing this task will not provide you with any meaningful added value, much like maintaining a risk log would not assist much either. What matters is understanding how to bring up the issues that truly matter, and then determining which of them may benefit from mitigation. This is far more difficult than it appears. If you, do it incorrectly, your entire delivery might be jeopardized because of something simple that you neglected.
Therefore, the top 2 reasons for contingency planning are:
1. Successful project managers understand that without this work, the delivery effort is simply flying by the seat of their pants, with the PM praying that nothing unexpected happens to derail it. Of course, the worst always happens in these situations.
2. Top-tier project managers realize that by being knowledgeable and understanding what to focus on and prioritize, they can assure that no matter what occurs, they will appear "excellent" and in complete control of the delivery. Of course, this means you, as the Project Manager, are in a "win-win" scenario.
Of course, knowing that you should perform contingency planning is one thing; being able to execute so properly is quite another. After all, it's something that's normally quite time consuming; something that no Project Manager ever has the luxury of doing.
As a result, you must truly comprehend how to balance this task and ensure that your efforts are productive while not risking the project's future since you didn't spend enough time overseeing it.
Need more insights on contingency planning? Take on the PMP Certification Toronto today!
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