The unknown and the unexpected: inevitable irruptions of reality

💭 If today nothing is going as planned , if you are asking yourself: "Why is everything going off the rails, it wasn't supposed to happen like this!?" this post is for you. And surprisingly, it may be the literature on project management that can give you some perspective 😊.

📌 A quick preliminary reminder : project management is the art of transforming visions into tangible realities. For example, it means starting from a simple written specification to deliver a living, functional and operational product or service. The added value of project management therefore lies largely in its ability to navigate through the unknown and the unexpected. 🌪️

But then, how to deal with them? How to overcome them? 🤔

Let's not lie to ourselves, a managerial bias that is still too present suggests that the key lies in anticipation and total control . A good leader, according to this perspective, is never confronted with the unexpected because he identifies and eliminates all risks upstream. Nothing escapes him, he is a superhero 🦸♂️.

✨ Fortunately , reality is less smooth and much more fluid! Life is full of twists and turns Project management itself recognizes that the unknown and the unexpected are inevitable. It recognizes that their occurrence is part of reality and integrates them into its philosophy of action. 🎯

Here are two examples :

1️⃣ The so-called 'unknown unknown' risks

This is what unpredictable situations are called . No project is safe. The project manager knows that they can arise at any time, and that it is impossible to envisage them in advance, so distant, far-fetched, and absurd would they seem at that moment. A natural disaster, an epidemic, a key team member having an accident... who could foresee such events?

2️⃣ Murphy's Law

'Anything that can go wrong will go wrong ' – this is the principle on which a number of budgeting & planning methods are built.

A critical part for a project can arrive late? It will arrive late.

A quality issue that arises during the team's vacation? Nothing abnormal, it's part of the game. 🤯

📌 Conclusions

#1 Reality often surpasses fiction

No, it is not always possible to know. No, it is not always possible to anticipate. “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.”

Fighting against this state of affairs would be counterproductive. On the contrary, it is about making the unpredictable and the unknown an essential parameter in order to better adapt to it.

#2 - Let's not be afraid to talk about it and raise awareness among all stakeholders!

Since the unexpected and the unknown regularly thwart all predictions, let us learn to name them without fear in order to better take charge of them. Recognizing their possibility is still too often wrongly associated with weakness. Let us put an end to the myth of the all-powerful Man, to rehabilitate the more virtuous and pragmatic idea that we cannot control everything, but that we can, on the other hand, adapt to it with agility.

#2 - Let's be proactive. Let's think ahead: "What have we planned in case of an unforeseen event? Do we have an activatable plan B? And our plan C? What is the budget? What are the resources?"

Let's write down our management of exceptional risks as precisely as possible, right down to those famous unknown unknowns!

Let's learn to think, write, organize and concretely provide for the unknown & the unexpected. Let's fundamentally integrate them into our initial approach, rather than confining them to the realm of urgency, stress or worse, failure.