Easy Risk Analysis

I always  knew I should be doing some sort of risk analysis, but I could not find a tool that worked for me. Because project managers usually suffer from information overload, how can we select – from the mountains of published literature – a manageable number of books and articles on performing a documentation review? How can we find and choose the experts for a Delphi process? How can we get an entire group to participate in a brainstorming session?

I have found the Crawford Slip Method (CSM) a simple and powerful tool for analyzing risk that has the side benefit of supporting team building. I first heard about this method during a seminar presented by project management risk guru Carl Pritchard, founder and principal of Pritchard Management Associates. This method sounded like an easy way to identify risks with minimal amount of required time, equipment, and training. I decided to try it. And since then, I have become a believer in the value of using CSM. In my discussion below, I examine some of the aspects of CSM and some from the nominal group technique, which includes the group review and ranking of the answers.

For those of us who are skeptics about the value of assessing risk assessment, we should consider the alternative. I have worked in situations where the staff was always responding to the immediate crisis, and their response …