What will happen to the projects? What about development approaches?

There has been a fairly long build-up to the current situation and hopefully the "inflation" risk was identified at the beginning of the project and mitigation measures identified, whether its project shut down and team reassignment/termination or financial adjustments made. Hopefully this is not a surprise.

In many cases it may mean revisiting the Business Case or reworking the Project Plan.

Generally, governments combat high inflation with a slow down led by reduced government spending and encourage with increased cost of money with the theory that one cannot fight inflation by throwing money at it.

So, too much restraint will bring on a recession, insufficient restraint with feed the inflation cycle.

I am of the opinion that the western governments with toy with trying to buy their way through this inflation cycle (short term pain control) thus applying insufficient restraint (continued and more projects) but ultimately (12 to 24 months) will have to move on to significant restraint meaning significant downward project pressures (cancellations). The private sector will react negatively (project cancellations) much more quickly.

Private sector investment is greater than government investment so expect increases in project stress and industry unemployment driven by interest rate increases.

The interesting part is that governments will strong-arm the private sector to slow down through the interest rate increases while the government tries to balance that with additional spending. To the casual observer it will mean - private sector bad; government good.

Sorry, a little politics here but they say venting is good for the soul.

Luis,

yes, the world is changing, like it always had. Change means projects, probably not the ones an organisation will do in stagnant times.

Crisis means high budgets, debt for nations and many people making a lot of money (billions spent on weapons, energy), while others loose their jobs or even starve or migrate.
Inequality increases. Inflation will rise in the western world. Riots and uprises will come.

Project managers, when they can handle the type of command & control projects that will again become the norm, will be asked for.

Thomas

Dear Peter
Thank you for participating in this reflection.

Times of great uncertainty are approaching

We've been chasing damage for years.
The pandemic led to a lot of money being thrown into the economy.
End of the pandemic and, as an expected result, inflation, the increase in interest rates, the increase in the debt of companies, the state and families.
Recession outlook
Not to mention the energy crisis (with particular reference to Europe)

One thing is for sure: Governments will invest more and more in the military armament production industry with embedded technology.
Many projects will emerge in this domain
I believe that in Europe there will be many projects in the field of what has been designated as clean energy