How should projects respond when force majeure events like war or sanctions disrupt progress?

Thank you, Shakeel 🙏. I really appreciate your perspective — it’s a great reminder that resilience in projects isn’t about avoiding every risk, but about adapting wisely when they come. Your words are both realistic and inspiring.

Thank you so much, Rami. Your reference to the COVID period is a powerful reminder that force majeure isn’t only about war or politics — global health crises can shake projects just as deeply. It’s inspiring to hear that you and your teams applied these strategies in practice and managed to keep projects moving.

Your experience reinforces a key truth: while we cannot predict every disruption, having a resilient mindset and adaptable systems makes all the difference. I truly appreciate you sharing this perspective.

Farshid,

Great topic to discuss and elicit different perspectives.

Projects are initiated based on certain truths and circumstances, their context, at a specific point in time. We put boundaries around them to try to establish stability in their context. If they are short in duration, this might be successful; the longer they take, the more the context will change.

If disruptions such as COVID, tolls, or wars occur, we should first check (with the sponsor) if the justification for the project still holds. And stop it, maybe. Secondly, we depend on the organizational system providing a partly stable context, so shielding the projects. Supply chains and people problems affect the whole organization, and it should provide solutions. Thirdly, we can make projects themselves more resilient, like planning for redundancy in skills, resources, funds, and supplies.

We can make them even antifragile if we have a mindset to look out for opportunities and the possibility even to change the project's purpose, scope, baseline, and adapt to the new context. Often, this mindset is rather a program management mindset, supported by mature adaptive intelligence and the willingness to pivot.

Great points, Farshid. In my view, the key is speed and clarity of response clear force majeure clauses, alternative suppliers, and rapid contingency plans. Most of all, transparent communication keeps trust alive even when progress halts.