On Short Notice

when the future arrives too soon and in the wrong order

• Abrupt closure means you get one shot and cannot correct course
• Under time pressure, experts do not compare options: they recognize a situation as an instance of a familiar type and act on the first workable course of action that comes to mind [Klein1998]
• This is called recognition-primed decision making: the decision is primed by experience, not constructed from first principles
• Experience that team members have handling emergencies in other domains can be misleading
• But is also more useful than they realize
• Asking "has anyone seen something like this before?" activates usable tacit knowledge under pressure

Pause…

• First, establish exactly how much time you have and what constraints are non-negotiable
  • Organizations sometimes keep shutdown news secret to prevent morale collapse
  • This backfires: rumors and information vacuums are more destructive than bad news
  • Silence, denial, and diminishment all increase reputational and community harm
• [Gawande2009] found that the most common failures in surgery were not failures of skill but failures to perform steps the surgeon already knew needed to be done
  • The intervention that worked was not additional training but a checklist
  • The same principle applies directly to unplanned project closure
• Spend the first few minutes of a crisis writing down every category of thing that must be addressed before attempting to resolve any of them
  • Access credentials, data backups, stakeholder notifications, community communication, legal obligations
  • The list does not need to be complete or correctly ordered
  • It just needs to exist so that work displaced by urgent action can be recovered rather than forgotten
• Second, triage ruthlessly using the MoSCoW method: must do, should do, could do, won't do
  • Must do: obligations that carry legal or financial risk if unmet
  • Should do: the minimum viable record of the project's work
  • Could do: give the community a way to find each other after you are gone
  • Won't do: everything else, including anything that amounts to "do it properly"

…then Speak…

• [Coombs2019] identified three communication errors that each increase reputational damage:
  • Silence: stakeholders fill the vacuum with rumour
  • Denial: asserting the crisis is not serious
  • Diminishment: acknowledging it but minimising its severity
• Rapid, honest, minimal communication is best even when you do not yet know what you will do
  • A single paragraph saying "here is what we know, here is what we do not know, here is when we expect more information" is not a plan
  • But prevents the harms of silence

…then Act

• You probably don't have time to clean up code, data, or publications
  • A README and a runnable script are a viable minimum handover for research software
• Notify funders and stakeholders with binding claims before the project goes dark
• Provide a forwarding address:
  • A (working) email address is better than silence
• Do not let guilt, pressure, or optimism make you promise maintenance you cannot deliver
  • The first conversations after an unplanned closure announcement should promote safety, calm, self-efficacy, connectedness, and hope, not logistics
  • Team members respond to the same event in problem-focused and emotion-focused modes simultaneously
  • Tasks requiring immediate action should be handled by whoever is in a problem-focused state, and social coordination must not wait until logistics are resolved

Convergence as a Resource

• [Dynes1970] describes four types of groups that form in emergencies:
  • Established organizations following their routines
  • Organizations that extend their routines to cover the new situation
  • Ad hoc groups that form specifically to respond
    • Their tasks are modeled on those of established organizations: they know what to do, they just need to come together
  • Emergent groups with no prior or subsequent existence
    • They invent both their structure and their tasks in the moment, with no existing template to follow
• Research shows that people converge on a crisis without being told to [Fritz1957]
  • People who step forward do so because the project mattered
  • They are likely to help if given the minimum viable information
  • In software and research projects this translates into unofficial mirrors, public documentation posts, and community email threads
• If you can support this without endangering yourself, do so

A Loose Interpretation of the Rules

• [Lipsky1980] found that frontline workers routinely depart from formal rules when applying them mechanically would produce worse outcomes than exercising judgment
  • This is called street-level bureaucracy: the real policy of an organisation is made in the moment-to-moment decisions of frontline workers, not in headquarters
  • Waiting for formal approval that cannot be obtained is itself a decision, and usually a worse one
• When formal procedures are inapplicable because time or infrastructure is unavailable, the people present should act within their own discretion rather than waiting for authorization they cannot obtain
  • Copying data, setting up a forwarding address, or sending a brief notice are all within the discretion of the people present
• Members of marginalized groups often have more practice navigating hostile bureaucracies their tactics can be instructive

When You're the One Being Hit

• Most participants in a project closure are not the ones making the decision
  • The advice above is written from the project lead's perspective
  • This section addresses the individual contributor
• Insist on a written record of all conversations
  • In most jurisdictions you have a right to record phone calls you are part of
  • If that feels confrontational, insist on communicating by email
  • If they insist on calling, follow up immediately with an email summary and CC your personal account
• Pause before speaking or posting publicly
  • If possible, have someone you trust review everything before you say or send it
  • Do not use someone who still works for the same organization, even if they are a close friend: it puts them in a difficult position
• Do not sign any agreement that might prevent you from speaking about moral or legal concerns
  • If you do sign, make sure the agreement explicitly excludes those concerns before signing
• This is privileged advice:
  • Someone whose visa, health coverage, or family income is threatened may not have a choice
  • Which is precisely why those who do have a choice should exercise it