CHALLENGES IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS

In the context of the COVID-19 unprecedented crisis, all managers have to face new challenges and to adapt to a work environment with less social interactions. This paper presents the context, the situations encountered and the measures taken by the managers in projects financed under the European Union Operational Program Human Capital followed by our recommendations. The management type is a more significant factor between success and failure than ever before. Some managers succeed to convert the risks to opportunities and some, on the contrary, increase the threats and the uncertainties. Our research focus was on how the managers deal with the World Health Organization recommendations on social distancing while the experts involved in the project must be in constant contact with the target group. Also, we evaluated how the Romanian public institutions responsible for OP Human Capital reacted to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease pandemic. We analyzed, on one hand, the cases in which were considered more beneficial for a delay of the activities to respect the safety measures and, on another hand, the cases in which the activity continued online. There were identified the factors that had either a positive or negative impact on both categories of projects, the grade in which the project managers were aware of them, and their decisions. For the projects that are implemented exclusively online, we asked the managers how difficult was to find the most efficient online work tools, how fast occurred the change, how reluctant the experts were at the beginning, and how sustainable is their new way of implementing the projects. Moreover, we assessed the capacity of the manager to maintain the project team united and to motivate his colleagues to achieve the project objectives. Another important aspect followed were some patterns in financial management, with a highlight on how the managers redistributed their financial resources for the next months