Top 10 Tips For Risk Management Survival
There is still a tendency for companies to think of risk management in a pessimistic way. Here we have some tips to risk management survival.
- Maintain a Risk Profile Throughout the project life cycle, different kinds of risks are incurred and the overall project risk profile may change. Project risk types can include schedule, resource, financial, technical, operational, organization, political, and many others. Maintain and periodically review a project risk profile to verify and validate potential risks and plan for their mitigation
- Assess schedule risks by asking yourself the following: Is there a project plan that provides task level detail?
Have estimates been provided at the task level? Has the critical path been identified? Is work completed regularly compared to the project schedule? Is there a contingency plan for schedule variances?
Is the schedule achievable?
Periodically, or at project gates and phases exits, review schedule risk assessment questions to confirm your assessment of schedule risks.
- Assess financial risks by asking yourself the following: Is the project funding secured?
Is the project funding adequate? Is the project funding based upon work-level estimates? Has a cost/benefit analysis been performed? Are benefits verifiable? Has senior management reviewed and approved the cost/benefit analysis? Is there a detailed budget for the project? Is there a contingency plan for budget overruns?
Periodically, or at project gates and phases exits, review financial risk assessment questions to confirm your assessment of financial risks.
- Assess resource risks by asking yourself the following:Are key personnel needs identified in the project plan? Are project team skill requirements clearly defined? Do project team members understand their roles and responsibilities? Are all team members trained?
Is the development team at a central location? Is there sufficient manpower to complete the project?
Is there a contingency plan for resource risks?
Periodically, or at project gates and phases exits, review resource risk assessment questions to confirm your assessment of resource risks.
- Assess technical risks by asking yourself the following: Are the business functional requirements defined? Are the business functional requirements stable? Will the project follow a defined methodology? Does the project team understand the methodology?
Are structured walkthroughs conducted for key project deliverables? Is the technology new or extremely complex?
Are all project problems identified, documented, and acted upon? Is the organization ready and able to support the new application? Do processes, policies, standards, procedures, and guidelines exist?
Periodically, or at project gates and phases exits, review technical risk assessment questions to confirm your assessment of technical risks.
- Assess communication risks by asking yourself the following: Are the project's goals and objectives clearly defined and stated? Are the project's goals verifiable? Have the basic goals been communicated to the project team? Does the project team understand and agree with the goals? Are all project stakeholders identified? Are stakeholders kept informed of the project status? Are project issues reported and tracked? Do project communication policies, guidelines, and reports exist?
Periodically, or at project gates and phases exits, review communication risk assessment questions to confirm your assessment of communication risks.
- Assess operational risks by asking yourself the following: Is the user's business environment stable? Will the existing IT environment support the application? Is there adequate project documentation to permit use by the client? Have potential users been contacted about the usefulness of the project? Will new hardware need to be procured? Will new networking equipment be needed? Will the produced system meet the needs of the user? Are the user's functional requirements testable? Are all project baseline deliverables under configuration management?
Periodically, or at project gates and phases exits, review operational risk assessment questions to confirm your assessment of operational risks.
- Assess project management risks by asking yourself the following: Does upper management support the project effort? Have all project stakeholders been identified? Does the project manager have requisite skills and experience? Is there a detailed plan including time, schedule, and resources for completion of the project? Do the people implementing the project understand the project objectives? Is the project monitored and measured? Have client acceptance criteria been defined? Is there a plan to manage quality? Is there a plan to manage risk?
Periodically, or at project gates and phases exits, review the project management risk assessment questions to confirm your assessment of project management risks.
- Enlist a Risk Management subject matter expert Risk management is traditionally an overlooked and under applied project management best practice. Without formal training in risk management it can be difficult to understand and effective apply risk management techniques. Identify and enlist the support of one of your project managers to become the risk management subject matter expert. Send them to class and enlist their proactive assistance to mentor others in risk management.
- Maintain a Risk Event Database Planning for risks and developing risk mitigation strategies is not a skill that every project manager has had years of experience in honing. To leverage the collective wisdom of the team, develop and maintain a Risk Event Database and continually add to it with information from new projects. This will enable the project team to understand what kinds of risks to expect and to see practical examples of how they were mitigated and to apply risk management techniques in their own projects.