What does Snowzilla teach us about preparedness?
I live in Montgomery County, Maryland, which is located north of Washington, DC and was hit hard by the Snowzilla this past week. We experienced 30 inches of snow and our county was completely overwhelmed by the amount and it has taken days of 24/7 support to ensure the safe and effective removal of all of the snow. Given all of the meteorologists’ predictions, why wasn’t the county prepared? Why did it take so long to remove the snow? I think about this as it pertains to being prepared in advance of a project start date. Here are some questions to consider:
- Did you heed warnings from others regarding potential red flags or did you avoid those signals entirely?
- Did you meet with your team to review your approach for this effort (either a project or application) or is this a top down strategy?
- If you were not successful on an application before, did you reach out to the funder to determine why your application was not awarded?
- Had you done your research on this opportunity and ensure that there was priority alignment, shared mission and vision?
- Did you have a task matrix that outlines all of the various tasks and responsibilities to be performed with different levels of accountability?
Even though we went grocery shopping, had activities for my children, and fortunately, did not lose power, we were still left waiting for my street to be plowed. Preparedness is a multi-pronged approach and should not be left to one person alone or else you will end up like our cars – packed in the snow and unable to move forward.