Effective risk management is a must for success!

Effective risk management is a must for success!

Effective risk management is critical to the success of a project. One of my former colleagues used to say: "if you are not managing your risks, you are not managing the project", which is so true.

It is vital that risks are robustly captured on a risks log, rated for levels of probability and potential impact, owned, acted upon and regularly reviewed throughout the life of the project.

A risk is defined as an uncertain event that could have an impact to the delivery of the project. An issue is an event that has already happened and is affecting the delivery of the project.

There are multiple potential responses to risks including: avoid, transfer, reduce, accept, contingency, share, exploit, enhance and reject.

I often come across people who do not fully appreciate how important robust risk and issue management is. They identify and capture a few risks early in the project but then don't do anything with them after that. These risks may not even be robustly owned or mitigated.

I have seen examples where risks are not properly described (E.g. "Strike / industrial action" is noted down as the risk description). If robustly defined, the risk should include the cause, the potential effect and the resulting impact to the project (E.g. "Industrial action may occur as a result of changes to terms and conditions, resulting in a delay to implementation time-line").

It is important to ensure that robust dialogue is maintained between the project manager and each risk owners. To facilitate this, it is much easier if risk owners are members of the project team.

If you robustly manage your risks, you are likely to have great control of your project...

Please feel free to contact me to discuss how I can help your business approach change.

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