What happens when you don’t manage expectations properly?
Anger and disbelief.
And #Tier4.
That press conference yesterday definitely provoked a lot of reactions.
Prior to that, the government had allowed a relaxing of restrictions during Christmas holidays, for example – allowing people of up to 3 household to mix and stay overnight over 5 days.
The virus has mutated, and now appears to be a lot more virulent than before, increasing transmission rate leading the government to ‘cancel Christmas’, ratcheting up the restriction level to only allow 2 households to meet up and only on Christmas day.
Much like Brexit, where the government has not seemed to provide clarity so that companies can prepare, this is another example of a mismanagement of expectations of epic proportions.
If I handled a project in the same way the government as handled the pandemic and Brexit:
– provide muddy information about timeline or current state
– give fuzzy and unclear ‘next steps’ other than “we’ll keep talking”
– provided a status report of ‘all green’ or ‘all clear’ when it really was RED (i.e. in crisis)
– gave no indication of the real risks – with probability and impact scores, as well as real tangible mitigation actions
… I would be SO FIRED.
I get that political agenda pulls many levers that we cannot see, and oftentimes to line the pockets of the corrupt, but surely – this should not be allowed to happen on such a public scale with such real life consequences.
All I can see is a big mess.
And a lost of public trust which will in turn mean that they may not be likely to follow the new rules.
Which may have a very tragic outcome.
I hope someone wakes up soon, and start steering this project back into “green”.
And that’s my wish for 2021.
#covid19
#managingexpectations
#projectmanagement