Risk Responses

  Change Management   Risk Management   ProjectsAtWork  

During your project’s planning phase, you should have worked with the team to identify and plan for risks based on likelihood of occurrence and impact on the project. During the work phase, you may run into those risks or other unexpected risks. When these problems occur, you have four possible responses: workaround, corrective action, change request, or risk response. Since each of these involves some change to the project, each should be evaluated before being implemented to avoid introducing secondary risks and new problems.

Susan Snedaker, author of How to Cheat at IT Project Management, summarizes each of these responses:

1. Workarounds —ad hoc responses to risks that were not planned. They should be assessed to determine whether secondary risks exist and if those risks are acceptable.

2. Corrective actions — actions you take to keep your project on track. Often corrective actions are minor tweaks you make as part of your day-to-day IT project management. Any type of corrective action typically carries secondary risk, which should be identified and assessed.

3. Change requests — changes to the project work or project plan. These changes should be reflected in the project plan and accounted for in the scope, schedule, budget, requirements, or quality metrics of the plan.

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