Managing complex technical projects can feel like trying to run down the middle of a fast and busy road without getting hit. It can be relentless, arduous, and at times, terrifying.

Like the unpredictability of fast-flowing traffic, there can be a lot of moving parts to a project. Many of them are often outside your control or influence yet you need to manage them all.

There will be moments in the project where a crises will consume all your attention and energy, often at the expense of everything else going on.

So how do you resolve the issue without getting completely consumed by it? Discipline.

Discipline in project management means doing what needs to be done whilst not get distracted by the chaos that is unfolding around you. This can be formidably hard to do.

A key part of this self-control is to differentiate between what is and isn’t important in the moment and being flexible enough to temporarily change your plan to suit the situation.

Once the crisis is resolved or mitigated, you can then assess the impact of the diversion and then figure out the best route back to the original project path.

Managing a crisis is one of the hardest things that any project manager will do because they need to manage both the situation and the people involved ensuring nobody gets left behind.

After you build up experience managing technical projects, it is possible to predict – often with uncanny accuracy – about what could go horribly wrong!

Taking a few moments to think through potential scenarios before they’ve happened can often make the world of difference. Just think, if X happened, what would we do next?