It struck without notice, without warning. A worldwide pandemic and everything changed in an instant. The kids were home, and Laura was missing in action. I didn't even know where she lived anymore. I knew better than to say that things couldn't become worse because I knew that was just begging for it.

I had to send out an email that I dreaded. Our next concert will be canceled. What was I going to do? In a couple of months, the holiday season would start, and every day I was getting notices that those gigs were being canceled. I knew I was not alone in my feeling that things were going to become worse – much worse. The musicians relied on these gigs to eat and pay bills.

Many musicians taught lessons, but how were they going to do that with social distancing? I was figuring this out myself, and fortunately, my students introduced me to video conferencing. It was not quite the same as being in person, so I needed to adjust my teaching style.

The next day I would have to meet with the board, Sam, and Fernando. I had terrible heartburn, worrying about my position being cut. I hoped to make the argument that they needed me more than ever. Fernando wouldn't care as long as it didn't impact his salary. Sam was more fiscally responsible, and so he was a wild card on which way he would land.

There was a lot on the agenda, and I knew that I wouldn't be sleeping much. Where was Laura when I needed her? I could have used some support, especially now that both kids were home, and were receiving their education through video conferencing. Was this the new normal – everyone communicating through a device, and people no longer interacting in person? For now, this would be the way of things, but I worried about how long and whether the symphony could weather this storm.

It wasn't about ticket sales because these were not what paid the bills. It was sponsorships, trusts, and contributions that were the lifeblood of the symphony. People supported the symphony through their generosity, but what would happen if there were no live concerts? Would people continue being generous?

I watched my symphony friends on social media in absolute panic, and my heart went out to them. What could I do to help? I had a list of ideas that I would present to the board, but I was unsure if they would endorse them because of the risk involved at such a chaotic time. My core mission was to serve the musicians and the symphony. I needed to provide lifeboats for a sinking ship.

“Hey, Dad,” said Corey, “I brought in the mail.”

Corey was looking for anything to do to break the monotony of being trapped in the house all day. Neither of the kids had been able to see their friends and spent most of their off‐school time online chatting. It made for a tense time, but they were adapting the best they could.

Laura had not visited in the past couple of weeks, saying she was afraid to bring the virus to the kids. I told her that they weren't going out, and so if everyone gave each other space and wore masks, they should be okay. She wouldn't hear of it and went radio silent with me. The kids said they got texts from her most days asking how they were, but not more than that.

I flipped through the mail and stopped at a letter from Conner & Conner, Attorneys at Law. My stomach dropped. My name and address were handwritten, and that didn't bode well. This wasn't an advertisement; this was official. The other clue was the “Confidential” stamp on the front and back.

In my heart, I knew what it was, but I felt like if I just ignored it, it wouldn't be true. I stood frozen in the kitchen, letter in hand. Linda walked in and stopped.

“Dad? Are you okay?” Her voice was in panic mode.

“Yeah … yeah,” I replied, snapping out of my shocked state.

“Are you sure? You're not having a heart attack or something, are you?”

“Of course not,” I replied, feigning a smile.

“You looked like you were in pain … a lot of pain,” Linda said.

“I'm just tired, I guess,” I said. “I have that meeting tomorrow with the board, and I'm nervous.”

“Dad, you will be just fine,” she said. “You got this.”

I smiled in earnest.

“Where did a daughter like you come from?” I said, and embraced her.

“You're lucky, very lucky,” replied Linda with a smile as she squeezed me hard.

“Do you mind if I order pizza tonight?” I asked. “I don't have it in me to cook.”

“Pizza … oh no, that,” she said dramatically with her hand strewn across her brow.

I laughed. “Okay, okay. You guys order, okay? You know what I like. I'll be in my office working for a bit.”

Linda ran off screaming, “Corey … Dad is being abusive again and letting us order pizza. What do you want? Remember, pineapple is not a real topping.”

As I retired to my office and closed the door, I took a moment to be thankful. It might be a pandemic, and the world was upside down, but I was blessed with two wonderful, beautiful children. No matter what happened next, I would always have that.

* * *

“Are you kidding me?” I said to Laura on the phone. My blood pressure was through the roof. I was furious.

“Don't raise your voice at me,” she replied.

“You say nothing, and then you have an attorney send this ridiculous separation agreement.”

“Does this surprise you?” she asked.

“In some ways, it does, but the part about the kids living with you and me paying you to support … is ridiculous. You left and have provided no support. You haven't seen the kids in weeks, and even before this pandemic, you saw them only a few times a week.”

“Children belong with their mother,” she said flatly.

“I'd love for you to spend all the time you want, but having them live with you and pay you money …” I said more loudly than I wanted. I tried to take a couple of breaths and regain my composure. “I have been supporting them solely. You continue to use the credit cards and bank account at your leisure.”

“Listen, my attorney has advised me not to even talk to you right now,” she replied.

“Where are you even living? Do you even have room for them? They don't want to move schools. You don't even have a job or any income that I know of.”

“They will have plenty of room, and Jim makes plenty of money. He has no problem with the kids staying with me. He has a great job, so he can take care of us. You just need to pay support and take care of your responsibility.”

I felt something break inside me.

“Jim? Who the hell is Jim?”

“That is not really any of your business,” Laura replied. “Come on, Jerry, you knew it was over. Did you expect me to remain alone?”

“We aren't divorced,” I snapped back. “How long has this been going on? I thought we were working on things.”

“You may be working on things, but I am done. I have been done for quite some time. Jim takes care of my needs in a way you never could.”

I felt she was just baiting me now. “Have you talked to the kids about any of this?” I asked.

There was a long pause on the phone.

“Are you still there?”

“I was thinking it best for you to prepare them. I want to pick them up Friday, so I'd appreciate it if you had their things ready. I know you are a little short on money, so you can start paying support next month.”

I couldn't take it anymore.

“Laura, I will not be preparing them for anything. If you wish to tell them you are living with some guy and want them to live with you, you do it. But know this, I will also be getting an attorney. I don't believe for a moment that pulling the kids from their home because you want to start a new life is in their best interest.”

Laura laughed. She actually laughed.

“You actually want to fight me in court? Really? With what money? You barely make enough following that stupid dream of being a manager or whatever you're doing. You might have had a chance as a musician, but that's over now that you injured yourself. Don't drag the kids through a nasty court battle that you have no chance of winning. Jim Conner is one of the best litigators in town.”

“You are sleeping with your attorney?” It was my turn to laugh. “You are really something, Laura. After all these years, I don't believe I have known you at all. You're welcome to visit the kids or call, but I'm not letting you leave with them. We will let a judge decide on that.”

I hung up the phone before she would respond. Nothing further could be said that would be productive. I kicked the wastebasket.

“Man,” I exclaimed, and the basket crashed into a lamp.

“Dad?” said Linda as she rushed into the room. “What happened?”

As I looked at my daughter, I knew I would be willing to fight for her and her brother. But I didn't want my hurt pride to decide their future.

“You and your brother need to come in here,” I sighed.

***

Morning came swiftly. I calculated I might have slept three hours tops. I really wanted to cancel the call today, but I couldn't. I needed to push aside the Laura stuff from my mind for the time being. I needed rest and perspective. I also needed an attorney and had no idea how I was going to afford that.

The kids took the news better than I would have ever imagined.

“Dad, we're going to stay with you,” answered Linda, and Corey nodded with tears in his eyes. “I think Mom has lost her mind. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I don't want to get into a battle with your mom unless I need to. If you think you'd be better off over there, then I'm not going to stand in the way of that.”

“No one is going to make me move. This is my home, and you take great care of us.”

Both Linda and Corey grabbed me. Tears stained my shirt, and I was not sure if they were mine or theirs. Why did Laura have to do this?

I had a half‐hour before my call. I shaved and downed a cup of coffee. The one benefit of these calls was that all I needed was a dress shirt. I could wear sweat pants and slippers if I wanted.

People appeared on the call one by one. They went through some business matters that didn't involve me, although I listened carefully. Then the floor was turned over to Sam.

“As you all know, it was with much regret we had to cancel our next concert,” he said. “I feel this is just the beginning. So we need to make some decisions about how to move forward the next few months.”

“I don't understand why we couldn't have the concert,” interrupted Fernando. “We will be onstage away from the audience. They can wear masks.”

“I believe that the situation is more complicated than that,” replied Sam. “The musicians need to be protected from one another. Sure, the string players could wear masks, but what about the wind and brass players?”

Fernando made a face like he had swallowed a bug.

“Besides, the government is setting stricter guidelines every day. We wouldn't be able to have the concert if we wanted to. In addition, people are afraid right now. They wouldn't come out anyway,” replied Sam.

Various concerns on both sides of the issue were batted around.

“We need to discuss the quartet,” said Sam. “I don't believe they will be able to finish out their concert series this year. There is talk of closing the borders, and they want to go home. We can pay out their contract.”

“What?” shouted Fernando. “No, you can't send them home. They are my strongest players in the symphony. I picked pieces for the rest of the season. Where are we going to get musicians of their caliber when all this blows over? Do you think you could find players good enough, Jerry?”

“Well, I …”

“Exactly,” Fernando cut me off. “It's settled. They stay.”

“Again, it is not that simple. If they aren't working, then it can affect their visas. We can talk about bringing them back next year when all of this is over,” replied Sam.

“What about the other musicians? Are you going to pay their wages for the season too?” Fernando asked.

“We are trying to work on a plan for that,” he replied.

“So the answer is no,” Fernando returned.

“I didn't say that; we just need to figure out what that looks like,” Sam said. “Jerry and I can review the numbers and see what makes the most sense.”

“I understand the board's concern about paying the musicians if they aren't performing,” I jumped in. “But they have families and bills too. My understanding is that ticket sales don't pay for the concerts. Our costs in the next few months will be reduced. We don't have to pay for music or rent the hall, which are two of our largest expenses. We could pay the musicians for at least the upcoming concert. It would be unfair not to, as they count on that money. We can look at each upcoming concert and make decisions as they come up based upon what is happening.”

I saw a lot of nods, including Fernando. I released a breath I didn't know that I was holding.

“I know that you have been nervous about us cutting your position,” said Sam. “Before we got on the call, we decided to keep you on for the season, as we have that in the budget. After that, we are not sure.”

“What he is trying to say,” said Fernando with a sneer, “is that he is not sure there will be a symphony after this season.”

***

After the call, I wanted to drink … a lot. At least my job was secure, but I needed to be creative to help the musicians to make sure that the symphony was taking care of them.

I quickly typed an email to let everyone know they would be paid for the canceled concert and that we were working on what the rest of the season would look like. I knew this would be a relief to many of them.

My call with Dr. Richardson was starting in a few minutes. I was relieved that he agreed to meet with me virtually.

“Can you hear me?” I asked when Dr. Richardson's face appeared on the screen.

“Yes, can you hear me?” he responded.

“Loud and clear. Thank you so much for meeting with me this way.”

“It's no problem,” he said. “I have had to meet with my students this way, so I learned how to use the software quickly. What a world we are living in.”

“You're telling me,” I chuckled.

“Before we begin, I hate to pry, but I wanted to ask you how things were going with your wife and kids.”

A lump formed in my throat. I thought I was going to cry. I couldn't do that.

“I … well …” I stammered.

“Oh, Jerry, I didn't mean to upset you.”

“No, no … you're fine,” I said. Dr. Richardson and I had become more than mentor and student in the past few months. We had become friends, and I needed a friend about now. I unloaded the burden of my wife's desire to take my kids away and the fact I felt helpless to stop it.

“Hmm,” he said. “You are a good man and a good father. I don't usually get involved in others' affairs, but you are a dear friend. I am going to introduce you to an attorney friend of mine. He owes me favors and a few debts from losing to me at golf. I feel confident he will help you and work out a financial arrangement that you can handle.”

A tear escaped my eye. I couldn't stop it.

“I don't know what to say … thank you.” It felt so inadequate.

“My pleasure, Jerry,” he replied. “Are you ready to dig in today?”

“I am now,” I said as I wiped away my tears.

“This is an unsure time for your symphony, and so they will need to do business differently. That means they are taking on a lot of risks. So I hope today's lesson will help you. I will send you these slides at the end of our call.”

“Perfect,” I replied.

“Measuring risks is a part of the project portfolio management function both at the project initiation and throughout the life cycle of a project portfolio,” he began. “We've made it to the portfolio management process group for risk management. And in this process group, you have two processes – develop the portfolio risk management plan and manage the portfolio risk.” (See Figure 9.1.)

“I see,” I replied.

“We have inputs, tools, and outputs,” he continued. (See Figure 9.2.) “You want to really study these mind maps and understand the various inputs to the process, the tools and techniques, and the outputs.”

I made myself some notes.

“Risk management is the cumulative effect of the probability of uncertain occurrences on certain events that may positively or negatively affect project objectives or the portfolio, and risk can be positive or negative,” he said. “Think of a company that advertises its systems and new services on the web during the Super Bowl to over a hundred million people. Those watching log in, and their servers crash. That's a positive risk.”

“I think I understand,” I said.

“They got a positive result, but they weren't prepared for that positive result. It seemed like it turned out negative, but if they had considered it as a positive risk, they would have thought through that they needed a more robust platform to handle all of the millions of requests.”

“Oh, I get it.”

“Portfolio risk management is about the processes involved in identifying, analyzing, and responding to project and portfolio risk consisting of risk identification, risk quantification, risk response development, and risk response control. That's a mouthful, I know.”

“I'm following you,” I replied.

“One of the ways to manage portfolio risk is to understand the risk tolerance of the organization and of your portfolio office. So as you look at the chart here, you see that you have probability and impact. This is important right now. You need to determine how much risk the symphony can take, considering the pressure it's under. Do you let some projects go for now? What about new ones?” (See Figure 9.3.)

“I have considered that very thing,” I admitted.

“If you have a project that has a high probability of happening and high impact, if you're using something along this line, when you're managing your risk and communicating with your executives, you can help them see that that is a risk that you can't take on or that you need to work around or you need to really focus on developing a mitigation strategy to address that risk, so it does not happen,” Dr. Richardson explained. “There are varying different types of risk tolerance. There's high risk tolerance and a high tolerance for business opportunities. When it's a high tolerance for business opportunities, we encourage creativity and some experimentation. In other words, we welcome that marketing of a system at the Super Bowl with potentially one hundred million people coming and hitting the server so that we can be creative and bring in a lot more money to the company.”

“The medium level two is operational threats. Now with operational threats, we are addressed to ensure continuity and success. In other words, you want to make sure you have a strong disaster recovery plan. Under medium one tolerance, which is strategic threats, it can lead to a crisis. This is a probability that's high, and the impact may be moderate, but it's in an area of the business that could create a strategic threat to the business even being around the next day.”

I studied the slide that he was talking about and thought about the current crisis we were in and reprioritizing our projects.

“And then low tolerance, which is a strategic crisis, is a danger of coming to a halt. In other words, if you have low tolerance, something is in a strategic crisis. If you have a high tolerance, you can handle a lot of the heavy risks, but if you have low tolerance, you can't.”

“I believe we are at a low tolerance due to not being able to have concerts and having to send our best players back to their home countries. We need lower‐risk plans,” I offered.

“I one hundred percent agree,” Dr. Richardson said. “This is another way of looking at it. If you've ever done a risk assessment where you've listed out your risk, and you calculate it, red, yellow, green probability and probability and impact. Or if you had used the mathematical formula in an Excel spreadsheet to calculate your risk, or you have a risk system, or you do a Monte Carlo simulation, which is used to determine the probability of an outcome based on random sampling many permutations to show you what's the probability of that risk. This is one way to be able to communicate to your leadership team about the level of risk tolerance and understanding their risks tolerance.”

Dr. Richardson continued (see Figure 9.4), “Now with the risk rating for likelihood and impact or probability and impact, you could actually lay the previous chart on top of the risk rating chart, and you can see that the areas where it would have been low tolerance, or tolerance that risks are acceptable, would be in the green area. The likelihood that you have a high level of risk leads to the yellow or to the red area, which goes to the right and up in the corner. If a risk falls within that category, that is very likely to happen, and the impact would be critical. That could be a risk that the business just can't take on, and you have to come up with a strategy to manage that. That's what risk management is all about – it's really about problem prevention. Identifying potential problems before they occur. Analyzing those problems, figuring out a solution for those problems.”

“This is exactly what I need right now,” I said.

“Here's an example of a risk register that you can leverage. The ability to be able to manage risk or see risk across your portfolio can really help you develop a comprehensive approach to managing risk and keeping the portfolio moving forward as far as being able to optimally recalibrate it and adjust it so that you're using resources in the most optimal manner and you're keeping the costs down as well as delivering great value to the business.” (See Figure 9.5.)

“I love it!” I said.

“You also want to assess the business or organizational requirements, the degree of any organizational risks that may happen and so, especially at the portfolio level, your risks are not just as it used to be as a project manager where you're looking at risks to the project,” Dr. Richardson continued. “You're actually looking at risk to a department, a risk to the business, a risk to a division, a risk to the entire organization, when you're thinking about portfolio level risk. Are you following me?”

“I am,” I replied.

“Great, now I want to introduce you to a really neat tool called Pugh's risk strategy matrix. This matrix is used at the portfolio level or on major projects or programs. Let me just give you an example.” (See Figure 9.6.)

“Pugh's risk matrix evaluates and prioritizes a list of options when you're thinking about a risk that you have to deal with. You can use this for a major risk. It's not for all of the risks at one time. It's for a major critical risk that can happen.”

“I feel everything is a critical risk right now,” I commented.

“The person who taught me this matrix, Carl Pritchard, gave it to me in a class that I took from him. He was talking about a company over in Europe that had work in the Congo in Africa. And the country was experiencing a unrest at the time. The project manager went to his boss and said, ‘I just did my risk assessment, and for us to be effective on this project, we need a helicopter.’ The gentleman looked at him with a questioning expression. ‘You need a helicopter? Why?’

“Carl replied, ‘Because the country's unstable and if something happens in the middle of the night, the roads are bad. We're not going to be able to get anybody out. We won't be able to get the equipment out, and we're going to end up losing a lot of our team members. They may even get killed, and so we need a helicopter.’ Carl put together a whole strategy around this, and he used Pugh's matrix to figure out that that was the best strategy for dealing with the risk. He started the project, and a few months in, they started hearing gunfire in the middle of the night. The gunfire started getting closer and closer. Luckily the company and executive team had thought about what he had said and had approved his use of helicopters in an emergency. They were able to quickly pack up their kit, take whatever they could, get into the helicopter, and fly away. Hundreds of people died from that firefight, but not those from his company.”

“That's amazing,” I said.

“The idea of using this is when you have a list of options that you have to narrow down to choose one. So let's say you have that risk of something really bad happening. You want to then look at the risk strategies and list the names of the risk strategies and the potential risks. For each one where the risk strategy has a positive impact, you want to put a plus sign. If it has a negative impact, you put a minus sign. If there's no impact, you put a zero. When it comes to time and cost, you want to put a positive sign or a cost sign. For costs, you want to put a positive or a negative sign as well. Then you can look across and look for the most positive attributes around how to handle that risk. So if you look at the sheet that we have there, risk strategy two, whatever that would be, whatever risks you're dealing with, it would be a better risk strategy that you want to address the first, second, and fourth risks. With time and costs, you have a positive sign, which says that risk strategy two, whatever it is that they've come up with, would address those areas.”

“I need to use this when figuring out the compensation strategy for the musicians moving forward,” I said.

“Another level of risk management is when you look at portfolio dependencies and interdependencies. Anytime you have projects that have dependencies on other projects, it's almost like integration of management in the theory of constraints world; when you have multiple lines coming together or multiple projects coming together to deliver a program, it's considered very risky,” he said. “You will want to increase the amount of buffer that you have when you're planning those, doing that kind of planning. Anytime you have any kind of portfolio dependencies or multiple project dependencies or programs where projects have to deliver for others to be able to deliver, that creates an enormous risk.”

This information was hitting close to home. I had created a number of projects that depended on one another, and now that the pandemic was upon us, some of those projects would be put on hold, but at the same time, it could affect others.

“Here is a quick story around the Titanic,” Dr. Richardson said. “The Titanic had a sister ship called the Olympic. And during that time, there was a major decision made to redeploy some of the team from the Titanic over to the Olympic to help bolster that ship because they felt so great about how well the Titanic was operating. A gentleman named Captain Smith was one of the resources redeployed to the Olympic, and he actually took the key to the locker that held the binoculars for the crew. When they eventually hit the iceberg that sank the Titanic, it happened because there were dependencies and interdependencies between these two sister ships. Because someone took the key to the locker that had the binoculars, the crew couldn't look out far enough to avoid the iceberg. And we know the rest of the history.”

“I had never heard that,” I said.

“Amazing, right?”

“Another thing that we have to think about when we're managing the portfolio and dealing with risk is the risk categories,” he continued. (See Figure 9.7.) “In project management, we may have technical risks, or we may have technical debt that we have to deal with, or we may have business risks. At the portfolio level, we have portfolio risk; we have organizational risk, performance risk, resource risk, financial risk, market risk, regulatory risk, reputation risk, quality risk, and contract risk. All of these types of risks impact the portfolio because there are so many more moving parts. The portfolio is impacting the entire organization because they're investing a lot of money. Most portfolios for even a mid‐sized company will run into the millions, and larger companies have to invest billions of dollars in bringing a new product to market, to improve technology, and so on.

“In regard to portfolio management risk response,” he explained (see Figure 9.8), “the goal is to select the optimal choice to minimize the threat and impact a risk could have at the portfolio level or take advantage of the opportunity that event may present. On the opportunities side, we want to do things like exploit the opportunity, share the opportunity, enhance the opportunity, or accept the opportunity. And on the threat side, we want to avoid the risk, transfer the risk like insurance, or mitigate the risk with the plan to keep it from happening, and have trigger points where we understand if that risk is there.”

In my head, I was already thinking of the work that needed to be done in this time of crisis. Even though it was a lot, I felt ready and prepared to meet the challenge.

“Finally, you must continue through your governance meetings, whether it's monthly or weekly project meetings and monthly portfolio meetings, review the top risks on a regular basis with the leadership team, and bring them up to speed on the risks that have the highest impact that could impact the organization. That's one way to keep risk management in front of people and in front of executives and get them talking about it. And the more you do that, the more people become aware of it, and they start looking for ways to address that on a regular basis instead of waiting for the trigger to happen.”

“You have given me so many tools to work with; I'm ready to go.”

“No one can really predict a crisis, Jerry, but here we are. I feel confident that you will be able to manage this. Remember, I am a phone call or even a video call away.”

“Thank you for everything,” I replied. “I mean it.”

After we ended the call, I went to the fridge and retrieved a cold beer. I deserved it. My muscles began to unknot as I listened to the kids in their rooms on their school calls. My phone dinged to let me know I had gotten a new email. It was an introduction to Dr. Richardson's lawyer friend. I was both relieved and terrified. Perhaps I needed to use Pugh's matrix to determine what I needed to do for my family. It couldn't hurt.

Dr. Richardson's Tips

• Risk management is the cumulative effect of the probability of uncertain occurrences on certain events that may positively or negatively affect project objectives or the portfolio, and risk can be positive or negative.
• At the portfolio level, we have portfolio risk; we have organizational risk, performance risk, resource risk, financial risk, market risk, regulatory risk, reputation risk, quality risk, and contract risk.
• In regard to portfolio management risk response, the goal is to select the optimal choice to minimize the threat and impact a risk could have at the portfolio level or take advantage of the opportunity that the event may present.