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Contigencies
We had thought about this possibility leading up to the weekend, but were still not as prepared as we could have been. I believe our subconcious mind was telling us we would have great weather and not to worry too much. Coming up with several hours of activities for kids with short attention spans is a challenge, even with the best planning and preparation.
Two minutes into the first activity, three kids came up to me and said "I'm bored". Fortunately this was not the norm, and the others seemed to enjoy playing in a room full of balloons just fine (some of the balloons even had air in them).The day worked out and everyone seemed to have a good time - even Mom and Dad. But it reminded me about the importance of truly having contingency plans.
To often, whether at home or at work, we don't really plan for contingencies as thoroughly as we should. And the lower the chance (in our minds) of something happening, the less time we spend thinking about alternatives. Even if there is only a 10% chance of a certain event or interruption happening, we need to have a plan for that situation just the same as if there were a 50% chance of it happening. The 10% that we don't plan for is often what ends up costing us 30 or 40% in lost time and money.
As it turned out, our project (birthday party) seemed to be a success, but our customer success measurements (enjoyment by the kids) may have been even higher with a little more thought on the contingency end. There would definitely have been less anxiety on the part of the project managers. When the parents began to show up for their kids, there was a scramble to find their shoes in the big pile by the door. After all the kids were gone, my son's shoes were the only pair that remained. When he tried to put them on he observed that while they were exactly the same make and style of shoe, one was considerably smaller. Someone had gone home with a wrong shoe. It wasn't until Sunday that we also noticed they were both for the right foot.