A Pragmatist’s View on Managing Risk

  Governance   Risk Management   Knowledge Shelf  

There are instances during the leading of an information technology (IT) risk assessment project (or any type of IT project) when project managers identify issues and concerns. As project managers, we have been taught to record, track, and monitor the issues toward successful resolutions. Individually, we are also taught to monitor the risks—managed and unmanaged—that impact the successful completion of the project. We are taught during the development of the project charter to identify the most significant or top risks that may affect the project and identify the supporting mitigating plans, their severity, likelihood, and impact. We end up with a laundry list of these risks for management to review and evaluate, as they approve the project charter. When the project starts, however, separate or additional risks (managed and unmanaged) occur that require the project manager to deploy and document supporting remediation plans. The project manager should identify the relevant stakeholders impacted by these remediation plans because they are high level remediation plans.

This paper will briefly discuss a pragmatist’s view to managing the issue and risk logs, on a joint basis, and understanding their interrelationships.

 Appendix A illustrates a log I use to track the status of IT risks affecting the successful completion of the project; it …

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