“Reopening schools” has been the buzz phrase in the news recently and much of the rhetoric has revolved around economic impact, the safety of students, and the potential for increased Coronavirus outbreaks. But what’s really behind something that seems to be such a simple project—reopening classroom doors?

Let’s take, for example, a contained entity (like a university) and first try to understand the question being asked: do they open and operate as they normally would? Do they offer some hybrid form of face-to-face classes supplemented by online learning? Or do they operate solely online? Seems simple. Make a choice, right?

But behind this seemingly simple project, there are hundreds of moving parts that have to be considered based on the choice. Housing is affected. Food services are affected. Cleaning services, campus security, and athletic staff are all affected. And this is just a fraction of the considerations. Creating some new method of delivering instruction can become a logistical hazard of scheduling, staffing, planning, and measuring deliverables.

This is just one example of what all businesses have faced during the COVID-19 crisis, as we closed doors and (for those who were able) moved to an increasingly work-at-home environment. Thank goodness, then, for project management and its techniques that can unite disparate groups and track progress remotely while organizations and their customers are now largely operating in the digital space. These project management skills have helped make many professionals new normal-ready!

What Project Management Has Offered

A good project manager incorporates planning, scheduling, resource management, task management, and risk management into their process. They often must achieve this process while communicating among a diverse group of team members, including specialists, management, workers, and customers. To do so in a contained business environment is hard enough, but with team members now spread out in their various private spaces coordinating plans, communicating progress, and keeping team members on task has become exponentially more difficult.

Project management skills, with the use of planning and collaboration software, however, has made the transition to work-at-home much easier. The platforms on which teams can communicate and share work progress, including real-time work with documents, has made virtual planning so much smoother.  And in some cases, like those that use LiquidPlanner, managers can use tracking mechanisms — communication, progress reporting, schedule, resource and task management, and resource leveling within one application for maximum efficiency. This is but one example of how project managers prepare for the new normal.

How Project Management Can Keep Us Moving Forward

In an increasingly isolated world, one of the primary concerns is communication. Where teams used to gather around tables in conference rooms or hash out details around the coffee pot, project leaders now need to focus on effective communication through digital means.

This incorporates several traditional skills in project management:

1. The leader needs to coordinate with different groups, perhaps in dramatically different time zones, to digitally gather and share information.
2. The leader has to make progress available to involved parties so that future decisions are based on up-to-date materials.
3. The leader has to find more private means of arbitrating disputes and working with personnel who may not be meeting quotas.
4. It’s important that the leader creates spaces for social interactions that build a sense of team bonding and allow for those unexpected “aha moments” that can come from an off-the-cuff connection.

The project manager, of course, will work behind the scenes to organize and schedule tasks (often with digital systems designed to aid with such demands), calculate budgets and communicate expenditures to necessary parties, procure materials and employees through online means, and to keep project members on task to prevent project scope creep and/or project delays.

Keeping It Together

In a business environment where nearly 10% of every dollar spent on a project is wasted due to poor project management, we could all use someone to coordinate, conserve, and control the widespread needs of our work. The best available tips on how to prepare for the new normal: Embrace digital transformation, and don’t work in a vacuum.

The “new normal” the Coronavirus has created doesn’t mean the end of teamwork. It simply means there’s been a shift in the way we implement and foster it. Project management has already provided us with the skills and the tools; we just need to take our lessons from our skillset and adapt. Or hire an experienced and effective project manager to keep you on task!

Are you ready for the new normal? Wondering how to future-proof yourself professionally? Focus on preserving or building your project management skills, and lean on LiquidPlanner to cover the rest!

Megan Glenn is a freelance writer with extensive expertise in a plethora of subjects, including home decor, business, lifestyle, and more. She’s been writing professionally for over a decade and has had the pleasure of working with incredible publishers over the years. She believes in telling a story, not just finding information. She believes in finding a story, even among the most mundane. When she’s not spending her time researching, writing, and making connections, you can find her on the yoga mat, in her favorite reading nook, or among family.