Assessing Risk in the Real World
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Peter Tarhanidis, Conrado Morlan, Jen Skrabak, Mario Trentim, Christian Bisson, Yasmina Khelifi, Sree Rao, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, David Wakeman, Ramiro Rodrigues, Wanda Curlee, Lenka Pincot, cyndee miller, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, Marat Oyvetsky
Voices on Project Management offers insights, tips, advice and personal stories from project managers in different regions and industries. The goal is to get you thinking, and spark a discussion. So, if you read something that you agree with--or even disagree with--leave a comment.
View Posts By:
Cameron McGaughy
Lynda Bourne
Kevin Korterud
Peter Tarhanidis
Conrado Morlan
Jen Skrabak
Mario Trentim
Christian Bisson
Yasmina Khelifi
Sree Rao
Soma Bhattacharya
Emily Luijbregts
David Wakeman
Ramiro Rodrigues
Wanda Curlee
Lenka Pincot
cyndee miller
Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres
Marat Oyvetsky
Past Contributors:
Rex Holmlin
Vivek Prakash
Dan Goldfischer
Linda Agyapong
Jim De Piante
Siti Hajar Abdul Hamid
Bernadine Douglas
Michael Hatfield
Deanna Landers
Kelley Hunsberger
Taralyn Frasqueri-Molina
Alfonso Bucero Torres
Marian Haus
Shobhna Raghupathy
Peter Taylor
Joanna Newman
Saira Karim
Jess Tayel
Lung-Hung Chou
Rebecca Braglio
Roberto Toledo
Geoff Mattie
Recent Posts
Project 2030: Skills We Need to Cultivate Now
The Technical Program Manager: How to Stay Relevant in 2025
5 Things Your Operational Plan Should Do
5 New Project Guardrails for Adaptive Leaders
The Leader's Voice: Respect It, Protect It, and Use It Properly!
Categories
2020,
Adult Development,
Agile,
Agile,
Agile,
agile,
Agile management,
Agile management,
Agile;Community;Talent management,
Artificial Intelligence,
Backlog,
Basics,
Benefits Realization,
Best Practices,
BIM,
business acumen,
Business Analysis,
Business Analysis,
Business Case,
Business Intelligence,
Business Transformation,
Calculating Project Value,
Canvas,
Career Development,
Career Development,
Career Help,
Career Help,
Career Help,
Career Help,
Careers,
Careers,
Careers,
Careers,
Categories: Career Help,
Change Management,
Cloud Computing,
Collaboration,
Collaboration,
Collaboration,
Collaboration,
Collaboration,
Communication,
Communication,
Communication,
Communication,
Communications Management,
Complexity,
Conflict,
Conflict Management,
Consulting,
Continuous Learning,
Continuous Learning,
Continuous Learning,
Continuous Learning,
Continuous Learning,
Cost Management,
COVID-19,
Crises,
Crisis Management,
critical success factors,
Cultural Awareness,
Culture,
Decision Making,
Design Thinking,
Digital Project Management,
Digital Transformation,
digital transformation,
Digitalisation,
Disruption,
Diversity,
Diversity,
Documentation,
Earned Value Management,
Education,
EEWH,
Enterprise Risk Management,
Escalation management,
Estimating,
Ethics,
execution,
Expectations Management,
Facilitation,
feasibility studies,
Future,
Future of Project Management,
Generational PM,
Governance,
Government,
green building,
Growth,
Horizontal Development,
Human Aspects of PM,
Human Aspects of PM,
Human Aspects of PM,
Human Aspects of PM,
Human Aspects of PM,
Human Resources,
Inclusion,
Information Technology,
Innovation,
Intelligent Building,
International,
International Development,
Internet of Things (IOT),
Internet of Things (IoT),
IOT,
Knowledge,
Leadership,
Leadership,
Leadership,
Leadership,
Leadership,
lean construction,
LEED,
Lessons Learned,
Lessons learned;Retrospective,
Managing for Stakeholders,
managing stakeholders as clients,
Mentoring,
Mentoring,
Mentoring,
Mentoring,
Mentoring,
Methodology,
Metrics,
Micromanagement,
Microsoft Project PPM,
Motivation,
Negotiation,
Neuroscience,
neuroscience,
New Practitioners,
Nontraditional Project Management,
OKR,
Online Learning,
opportunity,
Organizational Culture,
Organizational Project Management,
Pandemic,
People management,
Planing,
planning,
PM & the Economy,
PM History,
PM Think About It,
PMBOK Guide,
PMI,
PMI EMEA 2018,
PMI EMEA Congress 2017,
PMI EMEA Congress 2019,
PMI Global Conference 2017,
PMI Global Conference 2018,
PMI Global Conference 2019,
PMI Global Congress 2010 - North America,
PMI Global Congress 2011 - EMEA,
PMI Global Congress 2011 - North America,
PMI Global Congress 2012 - EMEA,
PMI Global Congress 2012 - North America,
PMI Global Congress 2013 - EMEA,
PMI Global Congress 2013 - North America,
PMI Global Congress 2014 - EMEA,
PMI Global Congress 2014 - North America,
PMI GLobal Congress EMEA 2018,
PMI PMO Symposium 2012,
PMI PMO Symposium 2013,
PMI PMO Symposium 2015,
PMI PMO Symposium 2016,
PMI PMO Symposium 2017,
PMI PMO Symposium 2018,
PMI Pulse of the Profession,
PMO,
PMO,
pmo,
PMO Project Management Office,
portfolio,
Portfolio Management,
Portfolio Management,
portfolio management,
presentations,
Priorities,
Probability,
Problem Structuring Methods,
Process,
Procurement Management,
profess,
Program Management,
project,
Project Delivery,
Project Dependencies,
Project Failure,
project failure,
Project Leadership,
Project Management,
project management,
project management office,
Project Planning,
project planning,
Project Requirements,
Project Success,
Ransomware,
Reflections on the PM Life,
Remote,
Remote Work,
Requirements Management,
Research Conference 2010,
Researching the Value of Project Management,
Resiliency,
Risk Management,
Risk Management,
Risk management,
risk management,
ROI,
Roundtable,
Salary Survey,
Schedule Management,
Scheduling,
Scope Management,
Scrum,
search,
SelfLeadership,
SelfLeadership,
SelfLeadership,
SelfLeadership,
SelfLeadership,
Servant Leadership,
Sharing Knowledge,
Sharing Knowledge,
Sharing Knowledge,
Sharing Knowledge,
Sharing Knowledge,
Social Responsibility,
Sponsorship,
Stakeholder Management,
Stakeholder Management,
stakeholder management,
Strategy,
Strategy,
swot,
Talent Management,
Talent Management,
Talent Management,
Talent Management,
Talent Management,
Talent Management Leadership SelfLeadership Collaboration Communication,
Taskforce,
Teams,
Teams in Agile,
Teams in Agile,
teamwork,
Tech,
Technical Debt,
Technology,
TED Talks,
The Project Economy,
Timeline,
Tools,
tools,
Transformation,
transformation,
Transition,
Trust,
Value,
Vertical Development,
Volunteering,
Volunteering #Leadership #SelfLeadership,
Volunteering Sharing Knowledge Leadership SelfLeadership Collaboration Trust,
VUCA,
Women in PM,
Women in Project Management
Date
By Ramiro Rodrigues
Is risk management just an exercise in paranoia?
That’s the question I’m often asked. I like to respond by saying there are both negative and positive risks.
A risk is a situation in which it cannot be certain whether a specific result will happen. That potential cannot be discounted. Thus, any risk hypothesis—whether for small or large risks—is subject to some sort of management strategy. While we often think of negative risks, positive risks present opportunities for organizational or project gains.
Risk management strategies can be applied to our daily lives. Take, for example, my own experience.
A few years ago, I was invited to hold a workshop on project management best practices for a service company. Concerned about the event, I decided to invite a colleague whom I trust to share the work (strategy: share) and increase the chances of the workshop being successful (strategy: improve). When checking his schedule, my colleague realized that he would be returning from a trip at 6 a.m. on the day of the workshop, which was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Even knowing that flight delays are more common than we would like, we decided to take the risk (strategy: accept).
In the weeks leading up to the event the preparation flowed well. We met with the client and tested the presentation dozens of times (strategy: explore), but the possible flight delay did not leave my mind. For this reason, I studied not only my part of the presentation, but also that of my colleague (strategy: eliminate).
When the day arrived, I woke at 6 a.m. to find two messages from my colleague on my phone. The first one said, "I've landed?” This gave me a sigh of relief. The second said, "I'm really ill. I'm going to a hospital.” I called my colleague and verified the illness.
What a great irony! All my fears arising from my colleague's risk of a delayed flight were realized, but not because of that event.
Some changes were necessary. First, I had to substitute the car journey with a taxi (strategy: transfer). Second, I had to remove specific parts from the presentation to reduce the impact of my colleague’s absence (strategy: mitigate). Even without doing so through a documented plan, I had used all of the recognized risk response strategies.
For me, it became clear that the great gain from risk management is in the exercise of thinking beforehand and being able to choose the best options available.
The outcome of the workshop? I imagine it would have been better if my colleague had been able to attend. But judging from the applause and words of praise, I believe that it was a success.
Posted
by
Ramiro Rodrigues
on: December 13, 2018 12:24 PM |
Permalink
Comments (21)
Page: 1 2 next>
Please login or join to subscribe to this item
RAJESH K L
Project Manager, PMP| Bharat Electronics, Bengaluru, India
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Aleksei Nikitin
Lead expert| Higher School of Economics
Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation
Good article, but it could be more clear if you decribe the risks in your example.
As identifying the risks is the first step in managing them.
I cannot understand which risk you "improve" by "sharing".
And I cannot find such strategies as "improve" and "explore" in PMI publications. Have they missed it in PMBOK Guide?
I appreciated the way you incorporated risk strategies into your story. This highlights the way that we perform Risk Management in our professional life, as well as the projects we manage.
Aleksei, those items you pointed out were technically not Risks. They were Opportunities, which is a part of Risk Management. Think of an Opportunity as the opposite of a Risk, in that taking advantage of an Opportunity will increase the benefit of the project. In this example Ramiro was "Improving" the quality of the presentation by "Sharing" the presentation duties, which can bring additional perspective to the subject matter and better hold an audience's attention.
Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Valerie Denney
Associate Professor| Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University- Worldwide
Cleveland, Sc, United States
Thanks for the blog on risk. I am particularly glad to see you defined risk as both positive AND negative uncertainties. While the PMBOK Guide and others give similar definitions, it is common in practice to focus on the negative.
Indeed, we need to prompt and effective in assessing risks and applying responses.
Thanks for sharing.
Good One,Thanks for sharing!
Tamer Zeyad Sadiq
Assistant Cost Manager| Turner & Townsend
Riyadh, Ar Riyad, Saudi Arabia
Ashutosh Trivedi
Director - Delivery & Operations| AnakyticsFox Softwares Pvt. Ltd.
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
Nice representation of case. Personally I would try to follow the same in each of my next assignment.
Bamidele Apata
Project manager | IBADAN ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION COMPANY
Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria
A nice and simple risk management case senerio, having a secondary risk incorporated into the case study could have made it a perfect 10. Thanks for sharing.
Kevin Coleman
Subject Matter Expert, Author, Speaker and Strategic Advisor| - Insights
Pa, United States
Md. Rahman
Founder and Head of Projects| ALPHABET Software
Dhaka, Dhaka-1205, Bangladesh
Thanks for sharing a real life Risk management.
I take it as a good example of risk management and problem solving strategy.
Thanks for sharing. Nonetheless, I disagree in some parts of your article. For instance:
1) "Even knowing that flight delays are more common than we would like, we decided to take the risk (strategy: accept)." Here the risk is "Due to a flight delay, the co-host might not attend the workshop". The response plan is "For this reason, I studied not only my part of the presentation, but also that of my colleague." The strategy thus is to mitigate. The strategy would be "eliminate" only if you decided not to have a co-host, in my opinion.
2) "We met with the client and tested the presentation dozens of times (strategy: explore)". Here the risk is "due to a technical problem, the presentation might fail." The response plan is "testing the presentation dozens of times", thus, the strategy is to mitigate, again.
3) "I had to remove specific parts from the presentation to reduce the impact of my colleague’s absence (strategy: mitigate)." This is not a risk anymore, because it has already occured. Now it is an issue.
I agree with Aleksei Nikitin, you should have identified the risk first. Defining the risk in terms of CAUSE - EVENT - IMPACT is also very important.
Vincent Guerard
Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance
Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
Prepare for the worst, your ready for reality. Nice example, thank for sharing.
Michael Hilbert
Director of Project Management| TuWay Communications
Bethlehem, Pa, United States
Great real life examples.. Thanks for sharing...
Hello Rodrigues,
Your approach of making people understand the concepts with real life examples is appreciated. And the way you connected the strategies in your story is interesting.
Anil Mutyala
Consultant - IBM i Infrastructure| Accendra Health
Pune, India
Nice article. It gave good examples of strategies of both positive and negative risks. Thank you
Luis Branco
CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª
Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Ramiro
Interesting your perspective on: "Assessing Risk in the Real World"
Thanks for sharing
Curious conclusion regarding risk:
"For me, it became clear that the great gain from risk management is in the exercise of thinking beforehand and being able to choose the best options available."
Page:
1 2 next>
Please Login/Register to leave a comment.
|
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
|
