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65% of Staff Gone. What Would You Do?
When the system fails, leadership becomes your only continuity plan
Khalil Rahim
October 06, 2025
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Hello Fellow,
Last week we tackled multi-stakeholder juggling. This week: a different kind of challenge that tests every skill you've built.
Imagine waking up to find two-thirds of your team suddenly unavailable. No breach. No outage. Just gone.
That's what the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is preparing for, as it announced plans to furlough 65% of its staff if government funding lapses. Even though that's a U.S. story, the lesson is universal: critical operations can pause overnight, not because of failure, but because of dependency.
For project managers, this isn't just about politics. It's a wake-up call about resilience.
In today's issue, learn:
Why dependency risks blindside even experienced PMs
The difference between planning for failure vs planning for pause
A one-page continuity framework you can implement today
How to lead with calm when control disappears
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Every project is built on dependencies: funding, leadership decisions, vendor contracts, regulatory oversight. We plan meticulously for tasks, but not always for what happens when the system itself pauses.
Whether it's CISA facing furloughs, Brexit disrupting vendor contracts, or pandemic lockdowns pausing offices globally, the pattern is the same. Even mission-critical teams can face forced standstills. When that happens, technical competence matters less than how prepared you were before the lights went out.
You can't stop systemic risk, but you can reduce the impact.
What the Best PMs Do Differently
Great project managers don't wait for disruption to appear. They assume it will and build resilience quietly into their project DNA.
Define essentials early. Identify the work that must continue under any circumstance. Build continuity roles by cross-training your team so no single point of failure exists. Mark safe pause points and know which milestones can safely slip without derailing outcomes. Communicate before crisis hits because preparing stakeholders ahead of time matters more than explaining afterwards.
When uncertainty hits, calm leadership comes from clarity, not control.
A Framework That Works
Create a simple one-page guide titled "If We Stop Tomorrow." Just three columns:
Must Continue: Incident response monitoring
Temporary Backup: Team Lead
Safe to Pause: Monthly reports
Must Continue: Vendor coordination
Temporary Backup: PM
Safe to Pause: Internal training plan
Must Continue: Compliance reporting
Temporary Backup: Deputy PM
Safe to Pause: Lessons learned session
For example, incident response monitoring might mean keeping your SIEM alerts active even if analysis happens at reduced capacity.
Learning Through Real Scenarios
Common situation: Your key vendor suddenly announces they're suspending services for 30 days due to internal restructuring.
Ineffective approach: Panic, escalate immediately, demand they honour commitments, scramble to find alternatives.
Effective approach: Check your continuity map. Which functions are must-continue? Who internally can cover temporary backup? What's on your safe-to-pause list? Then: "Vendor, here's what we absolutely need during this period. For the rest, let's discuss realistic restart timelines."
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Final Thought
Project management isn't about control. It's about continuity. The best Cyber PMs don't hope for stability. They prepare for turbulence and lead with calm when it arrives.
Because when 65% of your staff vanish, even hypothetically, the question isn't what happened. It's what did you already have in place.
P.S. Share this with any PM who thinks "it won't happen to us." Disruption doesn't announce itself. Preparation does.
Next Week: Any Ideas in mind? Let me know to include your favourite topic for next week.
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