A project could have any number of possible contingencies and could be grouped into categories of financial resources, team members, schedule, and technology. During the course of a project lifecycle, there may be any number of little contingencies or there may be one major contingency in one or multiples of these categories. Often these are defined in the Project Definition as Risks and assigned a level of Low, Middle, or High. Prior to beginning any project, all high level contingencies should have a clearly defined resolution plan that is agreed upon by all project stakeholders. This plan may need to be slightly modified during resolution plan execution due to specific details of the contingency; however, the basic path should remain unchanged.

Last week my wife gave birth to our first child. Without going into all of the details our daughter was born via emergency C-Section. My wife's labor continued to a certain point where it was determined that even if she continued on the same path, performing the same steps for a longer period of time, the birth would still be unsuccessful. Prior to going into labor, my wife and I had discussed the possibility of needing a C-Section and a plan was developed with the doctor which included the possible circumstances that would lead to this decision. When the decision was made in the middle of my wife's delivery, the hospital impressed me with their ability to respond to the present situation and move into action quickly enough to deliver our baby within a 1/2 hour of our decision to initiate the process.

What I learned from the experience is that a contingency plan is not complete if all it contains is an additional percentage of time based on the total hours attributed to the project and a feeling of "We'll just handle whatever comes up". A Contingency Plan requires an agreed upon initiation point and known resource requirements.

Agreed upon initiation point:
As the project progresses it will attempt to stay on the designed path established by the Project Plan. At times it will be ahead of schedule and at other times it will be behind schedule. A Contingency Plan needs to be flexible enough to be applicable for project kick off through the delivery date. This means that there is an agreed upon threshold of volatility to the project schedule, but if the project slips behind, based on the proximity to the delivery date, then the Contingency Plan will need to be initiated.

Known resource requirements:
Projects require resources: these may be in the form of budget dollars, available team members, skill level of available team members, rent of operating location, etc. These factors are considered in the creation of the Project Plan and they should also be detailed in the Contingency Plan. It cannot be assumed that during the execution of a Contingency Plan, the resource requirements will be the same as they were during normal project operation. If a Contingency Plan is correctly detailed, then the project will have a higher chance of success even if a major contingency occurs.

If each High Risk is properly identified, and a Contingency Plan is drafted with an agreed upon initiation point and resource requirements, then the project will have a higher chance of successful completion and you will never be quoted as saying "There is no plan B".