Can Risk Management and Project Management Work Together?

Risk management has been taking a backseat to project management. Finding an effective way to manage both processes harmoniously side by side has been a problem…until now.

Risk Management for Program Managers

Program management is a relatively young discipline within the project management profession. That means there are fewer tools and techniques to address the challenges of program risk. At the same time, the larger responsibilities of program managers mean greater disruption from risk events. Consider the following findings about the state of program management…

Risk Management: Quit Harping and Start Affecting

Oftentimes, project managers are talking about risks and it seems that no one is listening. Learn to use the risk management process to affect the project in a positive way using these four guidelines.

Agile Risk Management: Harnessing the Team

Last month we looked at how agile methods provide multiple opportunities for embracing proactive risk management. This month’s article extends risk management beyond the project manager role and introduces the benefits of making it more of a collaborative team exercise.

Agile Risk Management: Running the Games (Part 1)

We've already looked at the opportunities agile methods offer for proactive risk management and examined the benefits of engaging the whole team in risk management through collaborative games. As our agile risk management series continues, we walk through those games and explains how to engage a team in the first three of the six risk management steps.

Agile Risk Management: Running the Games (Part 2)

Engaging those closest to the risks and best equipped to resolve them (the team) in the process of measuring and acting on risks and opportunities is vital. As our series on agile risk management comes to a close, we examine the final three sets of collaborative team activities: Quantitative Risk Analysis, Risk Response Planning and Monitoring/Controlling Risks.

PMO Risk Management

One of the unsung PMO functions is managing risk. There are a lot of aspects of risk management where the PMO can provide tangible support to project managers in their endeavors. In this article, we explore some of that support in terms of identification, analysis and response.

Enhanced Risk Assessment Matrix for the Management of Project Risks

There are many tools available to assess project risk. However, the tools may be used infrequently due to the lack of a prescriptive risk management protocol coupled with an abundance of options. The author details the relative benefits of the Risk Fishbone Diagram and the Enhanced Risk Assessment Matrix (ERAM), and explains why they may be the only two tools necessary to facilitate risk management for most projects.

Agile Risk Management

Agile methods incorporate many mechanisms for dealing with late-breaking changes that also lend themselves to proactively responding to risks. Here we explore how these methods make effective risk management easier to implement.

Effective Risk Management

Few project leaders want to spend the up-front time and money to actually put together a risk management plan, but it truly needs to be your first step in effectively managing risks on your project. Your planning needs to include four steps in order to be effective and in order to be a "sellable" tool in your PM process.

An Unidentified Project Risk

Collaboration among stakeholders who are not able to demonstrate project management standard practices prior to project launch leads to project-as-planned failures. The author outlines 16 unidentified project risk elements, each attributed to the aptitude or the attitude of project participants, along with recommended risk mitigations.

What is project risk management?

Where can I read real life examples dealing with project risk?

Where can I find risk-related tools and templates?