Covid-19 – Thoughts on Recovery 2)Risk Mitigation

(Warning may contain Metaphors and Analogies. #justsayn )

Yesterday we worked on establishing a “Lessons Learned” journal, observations good and bad related to our current Emergency Project. (AKA Corona-virus Disease – 2019) Lessons which potentially will impact our “Recovery Plan”.

 Today let’s develop a “Risk Registry”

 Just a quick disclaimer for clarity purposes. These are discussions, utilizing examples, the intent is to offer people who’ve never faced a rebuild project of this magnitude before – that would be all of us – experience based examples of how to improve outcomes by “planning” our individual recoveries using project development style structure.  In other words, our examples are mere models to help communicate the concept.  Individuals will be building their own Lessons Learned, and now the same with Risk Registry, and the same with each upcoming instalment in this series.  Our goal is to build a recovery plan(s) for our own businesses and life.  Please keep the elephant roast in mind.

I will leverage yesterday’s Lessons Learned examples to demonstrate the Risk identification and mitigation exercise.  Our typical approach to getting a solid Risk Registry started with my former Shutdown Team was to begin by hosting a brainstorming session with all key stakeholders and participants.  For the Recovery Plan we each owe personal accountability to now, the stakeholders and participants may be our household family, and may include staff/employees if we operate small businesses. 

I would suggest that we need that same “engage the stakeholder” approach now more than ever.  So, share with each other, engage your family members to work on your personal plan, your staff when working on the plan for your business. Use all that tech and make it happen.  Face to face meeting in a conference room is now more of a luxury than any real necessity.  Skype, Text, Phone, Teams, twitter, facebook… whatever lights your fire, there is nothing about “lock-down” that stops us here.  Let’s not pretend we’re “too busy”, and lets not pretend we can't start on this until the Emergency ends. We can and will do it now.

Get away from focus on the steady stream of news from the Emergency Project, pull away, carve out some time and commit to building your recovery plan.  Starting by engaging the Stakeholders in your world, talk about what the other side looks like.  Say it out loud to each other, “Our recovery does not mean return to how it was.” Understand that things will very literally “Never Be The Same Again”, so what are the risks we will face and mitigate?

Mental Health is not my forte, but I know that nothing works better for my personal mental health than a pro-active approach.

 Don’t let Recovery “just happen”, plan your recovery.

 Today’s contribution to the plan is all about understanding, or at least recognizing, the risks specific to our recovery.

 So, one of the things I see in my Lesson’s Learned journal relates to the very significant power of our current personal IT tech.  I know that I intend to exploit these potentials as the world comes back online.  I identify the following risks even at the early, high level stage of the plan.

A)  Checks and balances, if staff is detached from the office, on their own at home, how do we know that we’re getting our money’s worth so to speak?

B)    If the new cyber-office is so successful there is no physical presence anymore, what happens if there is some form of Internet calamity?

C)   How likely is b)?

 We start thinking in terms of mitigation even as we add a Risk to the list. (Remember, No! is not a contribution; Mitigation is a contribution.)

Ai) We can explore a piece work approach

Aii) We could explore a more “sub-contracting” approach

Aiii) We could have some portion of in office time as part of the schedule

 Aiv) The arrangement may not be applicable to every employee

Bi) It may be wise to maintain some level of physical office capacity, just in case. 

Bii) We may need to fund some level of redundancy to mitigate failure at the local level.

 (Editorial Note: Mitigation's Bi) and Bii) are both of a type that by their very nature introduce potential future risk.  This is money being spent, that as long as everything is good, can seem to be spent for no just reason, I’ve watched mitigation's of this nature crumble to dust and blow away with a change in management, the new team seldom take the time to understand what the point was in the first place.)

 Ci) Probability relates directly to current, (at any point of evaluation), global stability.  Military activity drives the probability up, if military activity approaches global scope, the probability starts to approach certainty.  Currently, I evaluate the likelihood as very low, not zero, but very low.

I mentioned a person might be developing multiple Recovery Plans. If I re-work the above, but thinking terms of family, and the home-school possibilities that are now glaringly obvious, maybe it will look something like this. (I’m past the child raising time of my life, but full disclosure, I was always very Home-school favourable, so I’m near certain I’d be going down this road in my recovery plan.)

A)  Checks, balances, and bench-marking; how do we ensure our homeschooling is meeting the standard?

B)    If the kids are fully completely in homeschooling, how are they discovering if they “love basketball, enjoy debate, have an affinity for music?

C)   How likely is this decision to create a University acceptance challenge down the road?

 Mitigation's;

Ai) Participate fully in Provincial exams

Aii) Enrol in a school system Home schooling program.

Aiii) Commit to being a full participant in the homeschooling process.

Aiv) Home-school may not be the correct plan for every child.

 Bi)    Join at least one club activity, cadets, martial arts, hockey. 

Bii)   Mutually agree, (with the child), to one new activity each semester.

 Ci) If we enrol with a school district that has a Homeschool program and fully participate in Provincial examinations, the data base suggests this is a non-issue.

 So, on and so forth.  Like our Lessons Learned, this Risk document is intended to remain evergreen for the duration of our project planning and execution.  Risks that cannot be mitigated, need to be seriously considered for deletion from our plan.

 Tomorrow we’ll start talking about “Scope development”.

 #nottheend