Critical Incidents: Coping with Traumatic Events
9
A critical incident is a painful or traumatic event that is outside the range of normal day-to-day events and involves some component of loss or harm. The event elicits a variety of emotions in the individuals involved, including grief, shock, fear, confusion, or numbness. Examples of critical incidents include the death or sudden illness of a team member, violence in the workplace, the experience of surviving a natural disaster, or being the victim of domestic violence (Herman 1992). Less obvious events, such as the firing of a valued team member, extensive company layoffs, client or supplier delays, negotiation issues, taxation problems, or regulatory compliance dilemmas also can be critical incidents. Research by Mallak and Kurstedt (1997) shows that crises are inevitable in projects, and as a result, project-based organizations must learn how to deal with them on a regular basis.
Critical incidents affect not only the individual team member (the victim) but the team as well. The portfolio, program, or project manager can take actions that will help the individual and the team return to normal levels of productivity. In situations in which a critical incident causes extensive disruption to a team, the manager may need to implement a recovery plan, or the EPMO may need to bring in a program or project recovery manager, to save the program or project.
Critical incidents such as a hurricane, a fire, a death on site, or a threat to the organization‧s security can affect the entire organization, whether it is small or large. Incidents of this scale focus negative attention on the organization and adversely affect its financial condition, stakeholders, stockholders, and customers as well as its reputation in the marketplace (Reid 2000). They may also necessitate rebalancing and reoptimizing the portfolio. They may be abrupt or cumulative, but regardless, executives and other managers are not prepared for their occurrence. They are not considered during risk management planning or during the continual risk identification process, so responses to them are not planned or considered in advance.
Impact on the Victim
A team member who experiences a critical incident, such as a physical assault, may exhibit a number of reactions and behaviors that will affect his or her work performance. These may include:
Heightened fear and anxiety. The traumatized individual is more vigilant and on guard and is easily agitated by noises, routine events, or any situation or stimulus that is reminiscent of the traumatic event.
Somatic problems. Sleep disturbances, fatigue, changes in appetite, increased risk for illness, and weight gain or weight loss are examples of somatic problems. It is common for some trauma victims to have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. Other victims may sleep for 10 to 12 hours every day but still feel fatigued and listless.
Temporary cognitive effects. Decreased concentration skills, a reduction in short-term memory capabilities, confusion, a loss of objectivity, and a diminished capacity to make decisions are examples of cognitive effects following trauma. During the weeks immediately following a traumatic event, some victims have difficulty learning new tasks that require significant cognitive focus and attention.
Presence of intrusive thoughts. For many trauma victims, flashback memories of the traumatic event flood their consciousness with little or no warning. What makes these flashbacks so frightening and upsetting is that other sensory experiences accompany the visual memory of the event. Frequently, the victim will notice smells, textures, and other sensory cues that were a part of the original event.
Emotional problems. Depression, emotional numbing, apathy, alienation, and feelings of helplessness and isolation are examples of emotional reactions to trauma. Each trauma victim responds to a situation with different feelings, based in part on his or her personality and history before the event.
Issues with substance abuse. During the tumultuous, emotional periods following a traumatic event, it is not unusual for the victim to seek any form of available relief. Occasionally, this search for relief results in periods of substance abuse as the victim attempts to self-medicate the pain away through excessive use of alcohol or drugs.
Helping the Victim
While the victim needs to take the lead in adopting coping strategies, the program or project manager can be helpful by:
Encouraging the victim to talk with others, such as family members and friends.
Encouraging the victim to continue regular activities, such as spending casual time with friends and family, and to stay involved in activities that have been pleasurable in the past.
Encouraging the use of humor, when appropriate, to get through this period. Even during periods of crisis, one may be able to find small aspects of the experience that are humorous. These rare moments should be enjoyed; they are subtle reminders that life may not always look as dark as it looks now.
Suggesting counseling resources if the problems persist. It is not the role of the program or project manager to direct a team member to personal counseling, but such a resource can be helpful if the victim of the traumatic event feels that he or she is not making progress in recovering from the incident. Individual counseling or psychotherapy with a professional experienced in helping people deal with trauma can aid the natural recovery process and help the victim return to normal levels of productivity. The human resources department should be able to make such a referral should the team member desire professional assistance.
Considering whether it makes sense to temporarily reassign some of the person‧s tasks to other team members.
In assisting a victim of trauma, the program or project manager should remember that the primary goal is to maintain a supportive and understanding but business-focused relationship with the affected team member. The manager should avoid the inclination or pressure to become a counselor. He or she should respond with empathy but should also feel comfortable setting some limits on discussion of the traumatic event. The trauma victim may ask what other team members know about the details of the traumatic event. He or she may not want to have to tell his or her story repeatedly to all the team members. As team leader, you can pass that request on to the other team members.
Frequently, trauma symptoms are worse after a week or more has passed following the event; performance may actually decrease over time. Continue to strive toward a posture that is supportive, attentive, and task-focused.
Impact on the Project Team
When a critical incident strikes a member of the project team, other team members will be affected in personal and professional ways. Consequently, the project itself may suffer. The reactions of team members will vary and will often be surprising. The most common reactions that team members have when a traumatic event happens to a fellow team member include:
Emotional reactions. Team members will display a variety of emotions, including sadness, shock, anxiety, denial, and remorse. Some people will display these feelings immediately, while others will show the feelings after a day or two has passed. Others may display no overt emotions or feelings.
Responses that affect workplace duties. Some team members will talk among themselves for a few hours, unable to focus on the work to be done. Others will ask questions and gather information. Some people may volunteer to pick up some of the extra workload.
Surfacing of old grievances. Traumatic events often evoke old issues, angers, emotional injuries, and grievances held by the team members. For example, the death of a team member may prompt a surviving team member to say that he or she thinks the company has always worked people too hard. Often, the grievances that emerge have no direct connection to the current issue. When these feelings surface, the project manager should work to help the team maintain its focus on goals, objectives, and deliverables.
The project manager may react to a trauma with personal guilt, questioning whether he or she could have done anything to prevent the event. Frequently, the event is clearly out of the manager‧s control. However, events whose causative factors are less clear, such as an employee who has been working long hours of overtime experiencing a stroke, often cause the manager to examine his or her own behavior. Specifically, the project manager may wonder if he or she pushed the team member too hard.
If you, as the manager, feel personally guilty or responsible for the traumatic event, you can try a personal exercise to help put those feelings in perspective. Take a piece of paper and divide the page down the middle into two columns. In the left-hand column, list all aspects of the traumatic event over which you had no control. For example, if a team member suffered a heart attack when traveling on business, items in the left column could include:
The team member was at high risk for heart attacks and had discussed his medical condition with you.
He had poor dietary habits.
Weather conditions delayed his travel and increased deadline pressures.
In the right-hand column, list factors over which you do have control. For example:
I can continue to push for an increase in staff, therefore reducing the need for individual team members to travel.
I can push for flex time for the team member as he recovers from the heart attack.
I can distribute some of his tasks to coworkers.
This method is a good way for a manager to take a realistic look at what he or she is and is not accountable and responsible for. Without this clear focus, it is easy for the manager to assume undue responsibility for certain types of traumatic events.
Impact on the Program Team
Because program teams are larger than project teams, it is not uncommon for people to be unaware of a critical incident that has affected a member of another project team within the program. However, the program team itself (project managers, people responsible for nonproject work, members of the EPMO, and any other core staff members reporting directly to the program manager) faces challenges similar to those a project team faces when a member is the victim of a crisis.
Each project manager, when a critical incident affects only his or her team, should inform the program manager as soon as possible so that he or she can offer assistance. For example, the program manager can help recruit someone from another project in the program to help out for a short period of time until the project team member can return to work or help the project manager quickly hire a replacement or find a consultant. If the project manager seems to feel personally guilty about the crisis, the program manager should talk privately with the project manager to reassure him or her that it is not his or her fault.
If a critical incident strikes the project manager, the program manager may need to step in and fill this role temporarily. (At the program or single-project level, this role would fall to the sponsor.)
What if the project manager abruptly quits the team, leaves the organization, or is fired? These possibilities are often overlooked, especially on high-performing teams. If this happens, the program manager must:
Meet with the project team members as quickly as possible to share the facts about the situation
Let the team know that, if the project manager was fired, it was not their fault and was due to other causes
Tell the team that he or she is available to talk with team members individually to discuss what has happened
Fill the role of project manager until someone else can be hired.
As the program manager or the program or project sponsor, you may at times be aware that a project manager is dissatisfied with his or her work but has a positive relationship with his or her team and can contribute to the organization‧s goals. You value this individual greatly, and in a sense his or her departure could in effect be comparable to a critical incident. In these cases, consider the following approaches to help retain this person:
Meet with the person to discuss his or her long-term career goals and how you might help him or her realize them through work on this program or project.
Assign someone else to manage a phase of the project that the person dis-likes—for example, if he or she dislikes closing projects, you could choose a closing manager to fill in for this person.
Offer educational opportunities, such as attendance at conferences, participation in training programs, or reimbursement for courses.
Work with the person to outline a possible career path to show that the organization values his or her contributions and wants him or her to eventually become part of the management team.
Create opportunities for this person to interact with members of upper management in forums such as a meeting of the portfolio review board or during luncheons to get to know executives one-on-one.
If the project manager remains dissatisfied but you still believe he or she is an asset to the organization, offer to reassign him or her to a functional unit or another project as quickly as possible. You do not want this manager‧s dissatisfaction to affect the team‧s morale. Locate a replacement quickly, and ask the former project manager to work with the replacement as necessary. If the project manager plans to leave the organization, ask him or her to do so as soon as possible, again so that his or her dissatisfaction does not affect the project team further.
Critical Incident Stress Debriefing
Immediately after a critical incident occurs, program and project managers should consider holding a critical incident stress debriefing (CISD). This debriefing is a structured meeting, usually facilitated by a mental health professional skilled in working with people who have faced trauma, in which employees are presented with the facts of the critical incident and are given an opportunity to ask questions or share their reactions.
The human resources department of most companies can identify a facilitator to lead this type of meeting. The debriefing is not group therapy. It is intended to help people begin to adjust to the loss and to help prevent a significant decrease in team productivity.
Beginning the Debriefing Meeting
The program or project manager opens the debriefing meeting by telling the team that the debriefer is present to help the team members process their reactions to the traumatic event. The debriefer tells the group that the meeting is confidential and that verbal participation (in an in-person meeting) or, for virtual teams, active participation in the videoconference or teleconference, is voluntary. (Before beginning a virtual meeting, make sure that all team members are available and able to use the technology and that the technology is ready to go.)
The first step is to ask each person to tell the group how he or she learned about the critical incident. As team members listen to each other speak, information gaps are filled. On large teams, several debriefing sessions may need to be held so everyone has an opportunity to speak. Each group should be fairly small; three to ten people may be best.
The debriefer does not push people to speak or to bring up strong feelings and emotions. The debriefer asks structured questions (such as “How did you learn about the incident?”) to facilitate the discussion. The debriefer takes cues from the members and does not push beyond what is appropriate.
Letting Team Members Tell Their Stories
As team members tell their stories, the debriefer periodically acknowledges what they are saying by commenting on the natural process of going through a trauma; for example, he or she might say, “As John is saying, shock and numbness are often big parts of these experiences.”
The process continues, with team members occasionally and voluntarily offering favorite memories of the affected person or making suggestions about how they might help the victim‧s family. Many of these issues cannot be resolved immediately, so some of the CISD process is usually spent brain-storming how these personal needs can be addressed at a later time.
Usually, some team members remain silent. Other members may become overly involved in the process, talking too much and taking up too much time. The debriefer should be sensitive to their needs but should help establish some boundaries that reflect the purposes and limitations of the debriefing.
Concluding the Debriefing Meeting
Generally, a debriefing meeting lasts about 90 minutes. As the debriefing concludes, the debriefer summarizes the group‧s general thoughts and reactions. He or she may distribute written materials, often a two-page handout describing common reactions to trauma and the recovery steps the victim and others can take. If the organization has an employee assistance program, the debriefer provides the phone number and email, reminding team members that counseling services can be a helpful resource when going through a difficult time.
When the debriefing ends, the debriefer, the human resources representative, and the team leader meet separately to talk about how the meeting went and to discuss any follow-up steps. One of these steps may be for the counselor to be available on-site (if the team is co-located) or easily accessible by phone or email (if the team is virtual) for voluntary meetings and confidential discussions with employees.
In short, the goal of the debriefing is to support the affected team members by providing them with a safe setting to discuss initial reactions and to receive appropriate information on how to handle the normal processes of recovery and how to return to normal levels of productivity.
The Recovery Plan
Even in the best of situations, critical incidents can have such a negative effect on the status of the program or project that the manager must consider extraordinary measures to save the program or project from failure. When a crisis has a significant impact on project benefits, time, cost, technical performance, customer satisfaction, or overall value, the team should immediately begin a salvage process. This rescue attempt, although equally applicable to programs and to projects, is called project recovery here.
A project team that has had its efficiency, productivity, and focus disrupted by the turmoil resulting from traumatic events in the workplace is a team whose project is at risk. Four indicators in particular suggest that the project is in trouble and a project recovery plan should be considered:
The project customer is giving signals of dissatisfaction with the product, service, or project status. These signals can be overt (such as an angry exchange during a project meeting or a critical letter or phone call) or subtle (such as not returning phone calls or barely participating during project reviews). Whether overt or subtle, these signals must be addressed immediately and actively. Waiting for the customer to come around and regain a positive attitude toward the project is risky and may result in permanent customer dissatisfaction over the life of the project and in the future.
An excessive amount of project rework is necessary because of poor project quality, team members’ performance, or technical errors. Technical errors have become routine, and ensuring quality is less often a priority on projects. Without giving adequate attention to quality assurance and quality control, project teams will continuously have to rework, which will affect their morale and lead to further customer and sponsor dissatisfaction later on in the project.
An unacceptable level of project variance in one or more key areas (project time, cost, technical performance, customer satisfaction, or benefit delivery) has become routine for this team, possibly because the traumatic event forced everyone to fall behind in their work. Operating behind schedule often forces teams to rush their work, increasing the probability that the project‧s product, service, or result will have errors that require rework by the team. This process of rushing to catch up becomes a vicious cycle for the team. Trying harder and working longer hours do not necessarily mean reducing the key variances. In fact, trying harder often makes things worse and typically increases project costs because it requires overtime.
Standard project controls, such as earned value data, show that it will be basically impossible to get the project back on track. This indicator is especially significant if the project has passed the 20 percent completion point and the cost and schedule variances are too major to overcome.
These four indicators of the need for project recovery are often obvious to the project manager. However, when the manager is dealing with the fallout from a traumatic event on the team, it is easy to miss these indicators. (Sometimes the project manager sees the symptoms of a problem but hopes that they correct themselves over time.) The goal is for the project manager to locate the root cause of the problem and to take action.
Taking Steps toward Project Recovery
There are four distinct steps to building a project recovery plan:
Identify actions or alternatives that will help eliminate the significant variances in project time, cost, and technical performance. The project manager should identify ways to minimize damage to the off-course project, such as adding or subtracting team members, obtaining additional funds or resources if needed, and revising the schedule to expedite delivery of the product to the customer, even if this means deviating significantly from the plan or from the project management policies and procedures.
Take actions that may help reduce the project variances. The project manager might conduct team-customer meetings to establish a turnaround strategy, discuss possible recovery options, and conduct a concrete review of the project scope. This process may result in the preparation of a project recovery plan, with a schedule of activities to be performed during the recovery efforts and a budget for the recovery initiative. Activities might include adding or subtracting team members, acquiring additional funds or resources (through outsourcing or using resources elsewhere in the organization), revising the schedule through fast tracking or delaying certain tasks in the schedule not on the critical path, or taking other actions to expedite a reasonable delivery of the product, service, or result to the customer.
Closely monitor the project recovery plan against the executed actions. The project manager must review the revised scope of the project frequently, consult with subject matter experts regarding documentation, hold regular—as often as daily—status reviews with team members, and regularly schedule customer meetings, technical reviews, and audits.
Control specifications and alternatives designed to reduce the unacceptable variances. It is necessary to take actions to minimize the risk of project disaster and ensure that similar project variances do not occur again. Lessons learned from the problems encountered in the current project can be documented in a lessons-learned database or repository and applied proactively to establish risk-management responses for future work on the current project and for future projects in the organization.
Assessing Team Effectiveness and Performance
As the project manager begins to craft the four-step recovery strategy following a critical incident, he or she should assess the effectiveness of the project team as a whole as well as that of the individual team members. The project manager should review performance reports to determine the level of team performance and should investigate whether members are using the resources they are given to meet deadlines and milestones. Alternatively, the project manager can request feedback from all team members to evaluate how the team is functioning as a unit and how individual team members function when working alone.
The success of the recovery effort is not solely the responsibility of the project manager. Indeed, there are specific actions that team members must take to assist in the recovery process. Team member responsibilities include:
Informing the project manager immediately as new project problems and risks are uncovered
Actively supporting the project manager in developing and implementing project recovery strategies
Regularly updating the project manager on the effectiveness of the recovery strategies, providing frequent status updates regarding project schedule, cost, and deliverables.
The Project Recovery Manager
Even the best project recovery plan is not always successful. In certain situations, the existing project structure (i.e., the project manager and the project team) may be unable to execute the recovery plan. The EPMO or project sponsor may need to identify and appoint a new person to serve as the project recovery manager and reassign the project manager to another initiative.
The primary mission of the project recovery manager is to ensure that project recovery risks are accurately defined, identified, and assessed so that concrete action can be taken. He or she may wish to establish a task force to focus on the recovery process. A recovery manager should have previous experience with similar projects and the skills needed to motivate the team members, work with the stakeholders, make decisions, and hold the team accountable for achieving the project‧s goals (Rad and Levin 2003).
The new manager must develop a clear project recovery plan that is approved and supported by internal management. Without management‧s true, meaningful support, the plan‧s chances of success are minimal. A key element of the recovery plan is the project recovery manager‧s review of the results of any project assessments conducted thus far by the original project manager and his or her team.
Once the recovery plan has been created and implemented, the recovery manager must focus on reviewing progress and assessing future risks. He or she can hold frequent reviews with the project team members and discuss risks at each project team meeting. After each review, the recovery manager must update the recovery plan as necessary. Also, the recovery manager must keep detailed records and track the financial implications of the action items in the recovery plan.
Another key focus for the recovery manager is making certain that communication with senior managers, functional managers, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders is open, regular, and effective. The recovery manager should be aware of the type of communication stakeholders need and how often it should happen. He or she should consider preparing an analysis of stakeholder information requirements to be certain that important information is provided to project stakeholders in a timely manner. Stakeholders should also have access to information between scheduled communications.
The recovery manager should update the project‧s communications management plan, review its effectiveness frequently, and often ask, “Who else should we be talking with about the needs and status of the recovery effort?” During a stressful recovery effort, it is easy to overlook a key stakeholder because the team is focused on day-to-day activities.
Leading a project recovery effort can be a thankless job, given all the problems that must be corrected and the strong risk of high-visibility failure. This role is not for every project professional.
Leadership Skills
It is crucial that the recovery manager demonstrate leadership skills under trying circumstances. He or she must be able to:
Motivate team members (see Chapter 3) and make difficult decisions
Hold the work group accountable for achieving goals in a timely manner.
Interpersonal Skills
The recovery manager should be proficient in applying a wide variety of sophisticated interpersonal skills, including the ability to:
Resolve conflicts (see Chapter 8)
Build (or rebuild) a sense of team without critical fault-finding or finger-pointing (see Chapter 2)
Make decisions (see Chapter 6).
Customer Relations Skills
The project recovery manager should also have excellent skills in customer relationship management. He or she must address customer issues and needs forthrightly without attempting to defend the previous work of the team. Trying to defend the team at this point leads to a “yes, but” interaction between the customer and the team that becomes circular and does not help get the project back on track.
Some project recovery managers enjoy the challenge of the recovery process but do not spend sufficient time on customer relationship management issues, choosing instead to immerse themselves in the technical content of the project and team details. It is often easier to avoid situations that may be confrontational. This is a natural response, but it can become a serious problem if the manager pays insufficient attention to customer satisfaction. Ideally, the recovery manager will balance time spent working on the technical details of the project with time spent addressing the customer‧s needs.
When working with customers, the recovery manager should avoid over-promising. Some recovery managers may try to play the hero; they imagine themselves swooping in during the crisis and saving the project and the organization‧s reputation with the customer. The danger of this approach is that the recovery manager may make unreasonable promises to the customer about what can be fixed in the situation. Unrealistic promises can come back to haunt the recovery manager, the team, and the organization not only during the current project but also in future business dealings with the customer.
To avoid the risk of overpromising, the recovery manager should:
Assess and monitor his or her internal need to be viewed as the hero
Give the customer realistic expectations of what is possible, as this becomes known
Adopt a positive but realistic tone in communications, stressing all that can and will be done for the customer while accurately describing the limits and extent of recovery possibilities.
Communication Skills
At this point in the project, all stakeholders are aware that things have not been going well and tensions are high. Stakeholders such as project sponsors and customers do not want any surprises. The best approach to dealing with sponsors and customers is to keep them updated with both the good news and the bad news. The project recovery manager must be assertive in reaching out and communicating with key project stakeholders. He or she should provide regular updates and interact frequently with management and with customers.
Project Failure and Project Closure
Even with the best efforts, some project recovery efforts following critical incidents will fail, and the project should be terminated. The recovery effort—and the project—should be terminated when:
The project has been delayed to the point that the result would be obsolete when completed.
Final costs outweigh the benefits, or no additional funds are available for recovery.
The project is so far out of control that it cannot be managed.
Resources may be better used on other projects.
Although closing down a terminated project is never a pleasant task, it can be handled in an efficient and professional manner. During the closure process, the project recovery manager should have the following goals:
Provide accurate and timely information.
Be direct and clear with all stakeholders.
Display sensitivity when communicating the reasons for the closure to the various stakeholders.
For many stakeholders, the closure will be a personal loss of significant emotional proportion—not to mention the damages to the organization‧s finances and reputation. The recovery manager‧s sensitivity when delivering this bad news can help team members maintain a positive personal, team, and organizational image as they move forward to the next project.
Tips for the Project Manager
Critical incidents in the project world require the project manager to address a number of issues and challenges. Project managers should consider the following suggestions when a critical incident or event strikes the project team:
Determine whether a critical incident debriefing should be held for team members.
During the aftermath of the critical incident, avoid the temptation to make unrealistic promises to team members and stakeholders.
Adopt realistic expectations regarding the team members’ current ability to perform.
Adopt a balanced “yes, but” position with team members, saying in essence: “Yes, we have undergone a crisis, and we are all upset about its implications, but we still must find a way to focus on the tasks of the project the best we can.”
Gradually set boundaries and limits with the team, acknowledging both the loss and the need to stay focused on the tasks at hand.
Monitor individual work performance, and address possible performance issues by talking with struggling team members, reminding them of the goals of the project, and offering internal and external resources that can help them achieve the desired level of performance.
As the team begins to stabilize post-crisis, determine whether the critical incident has been sufficiently detrimental to the progress of the project to warrant developing a project recovery strategy, bringing in a project recovery manager, and reassigning the project manager.
Summary
Risk management is an integral part of programs and projects, but many managers overlook risks involving people and instead concentrate on risks involving technical or process-related factors. Critical incidents present major risks when they occur, and though they happen less often than other risks, program and project managers should know how to respond to such events if necessary.
Whenever a program or project manager learns that a critical incident has affected a team member, such as in the case of an illness, the death of a family member, or some other major crisis, he or she should first obtain as much information about the incident as appropriate and then assemble the entire team for a meeting to discuss how it will address the situation. It may be helpful to hold a critical incident stress debriefing and involve the human resource department, which has more expertise in these situations and can facilitate the session and provide counseling services if necessary. It may also be necessary to prepare a recovery plan if the affected team member(s) can no longer complete his or her assigned tasks. Because the critical incident could possibly jeopardize the success of the program or project, it is important to consider and manage the recovery plan very carefully.
If the critical incident affects the program or project manager directly, a senior member of the team or an outside program or project manager may need to assume the manager‧s duties, work diligently to execute the recovery plan, and involve any stakeholders who can assist in keeping the program or project on track for success.
Discussion Questions
A project manager walked into her office on Monday morning, and her human resources representative immediately told her that one of her team members had died over the weekend following a business trip.
This team member, a telecommunications engineer, had suffered a stroke while traveling. She had been working long hours for months at a time, frequently volunteering to travel to other states to help fellow team members with difficult projects. She had trained many of the junior team members from their first days of employment at the company, and they had looked up to her as a mentor.
As the team members began arriving for work that Monday morning, the project manager wondered what she should do. If you were this project manager:
How would you share the news with your team?
What types of reactions and performance issues might you expect from your team members?