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Two key computers crashed irreversibly last week and an unobservant driver hit my car. Business deadlines can’t be moved. The next 3 weeks are on the road. What to do? Pause, breathe, think and act. It’s just another project, one that is rather personal but still a project just the same.
Pause and Ask The Right Questions
A series of questions helped steer through this project ask:
- Even if it is unrelated, did these events occur while pursuing what is best (to do)?
- Separate from personal feelings and desires can I accept myself, the situation, and the people involved?
- Can an adequate list of the principles and constraints be listed by a stakeholder? This list started at the moment of the accident and computer crashes and includes the policeman, other driver, insurance agents, computer repairman, clients, etc.
- Can personal limits along with available resources be listed?
- Is there a risk management plan in place for dealing with loss of time, money, and resources?
- Can an adequate plan be built to get back on track and stay on track? Can that plan adapt to new information?
Breathe and Think
Before getting on to using the questions it is worth pointing out the saving grace to all this is the “what ifs” thought through over the years along with implementation of associated strategies. It is in line with an earlier blog regarding the “Titanic,” i.e., instead of trying to design a ship that wouldn’t sink it would have been better to design in response to the question, “What do we do if the ship does sink?” Applied here it’s translated into saying well in advance, “It could happen, lean into it, generate a plan,” instead of just reacting to problems by saying, “This shouldn’t be happening to me because…!”
Take Action
Actions comprise weaving the results of pursuing the questions with the risk response strategies. Centeredness has taken shape in the midst of the anger, disappointment, frustration, etc., This centeredness surfaced the question,
Do I stay with what can be done or get lost in reacting?
One example of staying with what CAN be done involves some key databases and revolves around asking, “What if the hourly backups that should never corrupt actually do?” The worst-case costs led to additional backups on separate equipment for especially important files beyond the imaged external hard drives. THAT strategy paid off handsomely. Somehow the hourly files were corrupted and there has been no time to explore. The additional belts-and-suspenders backups saved the day. They are running well with the new compute. The jury is still out on the second computer, which is being fixed under warranty.
The gods of blogging must have been watching all this. When going into the computer shop a conversation was under way. It went something like this, “We couldn’t recover any data. You can send them to a recovery specialist. Prices start at $700/hard drive and go up from there. Since you have several hard drives that need recovered…well you can see where the math is going.”
Pause, breathe, think, and act. The more it is done when everything is okay the better it will be when things go south.
Did I mention my car was hit? With that there is repair, a rental, insurance adjusters, claim adjusters …whoa!…got to get packing! Plane to catch. It looks like more pausing, breathing, and thinking while on the road. Sleep will be sometime in May.
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