PMcrunch

There is always something going on that we can "take advantage of". When we are in school, we can take advantage of the opportunity to learn new things in a free thinking environment. When we are on vacation, we can take advantage of the opportunity to sit back, relax and have a good time. When the weekend comes, we can take advantage of the opportunity to get some extra things done around the house, or to see to some friends. Now, we find ourselves in a recession. So, the natural question is, "What can we do to take advantage of the recession?"

A recession provides us with the opportunity to do some introspection. One way to think about it is to consider what it is like when we are not in recession. When we are not in recession, we tend to be more revenue-driven, whereas, by contrast, we become more cost-driven during a recession. Hence, I would say that a recession is a great chance to do the introspection necessary to put our costs in order. However, this seems to obvious and I think there’s much more opportunity in a recession than this.

In this rapidly changing world, if all that changed between boom and bust cycles was the opportunity to change emphasis between revenues and costs, we would have a pretty simple model. However, the reality is that we live in a world of innovation and ideas. We live in a world of industry restructuring of realignment and of evolution. I think the recession gives us the opportunity to tap into these larger areas.

We need to rethink much more than costs in the recession. We need to completely rethink what it is we are doing. We need to look at what projects are most important and which ones are necessary at all. We can apply a great deal of innovation on how we manage projects. We can initiate new practices of brainstorming and leveraging the capabilities better and better of each and every person on our team. We can innovate in a way we communicate with stakeholders, and in a way we ask our stakeholders to communicate with us. We can innovate in a way we evaluate performance. We can take some processes and practices and completely turn them upside down, and see what might happen.

Indeed, I think the recession is a time for rethinking. It is a time when all tend to be more open to ideas for change than is the case when times are good. Let’s take advantage of the recession and recognize the potential changes that are uniquely within our grasp at this special time. Let’s take advantage of the recession.

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John Reiling, PMP
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