Hi
I'd love to get some advice on how can I deem if I risk is forseeable or not, From MPI I know that 90% of risks are usually forseeable, but I did not see any examples. Are only weather/pandemic/huge accidents/wars considered unforseeable?
Also, I have already read alot about the 5 whys method of finding a root cause of a risk, but I am still a bit lost without examples, what type of categories/root causes should I end up with, I assume it should be a group of fundamental areas like technology, human factor, what else? Thanks Saving Changes...
The vast majority of risks can be foreseeable but the effort, creativity and imagination required to do so might not be justifiable. Even many so-called black swan events were predictable had the right people connected the right dots.
Major weather events might not be predictable months in advance, but frequent risk monitoring might provide some early warning signs that could be acted upon. The same is true of wars - rarely do they just start without something brewing for months or years in advance. Finally, pandemics have been predicted by experts for decades - most companies gave the probability of occurrence a very low rating, but they were foreseeable.
Although the natural disaster type event is often used as an example of unforeseeable risks, many examples involve stakeholders. Some from my personal experience: An important team member leaves the company or falls ill. Suppliers reveal a major undisclosed issue like materials or personnel shortages. A new VP is announced who doesn't like the project. A water pipe breaks in the building and everyone must evacuate. A major reorganization throws everything into chaos.
Those might be predictable by someone with more knowledge, but the PM is not all seeing and all knowing.
As for categories of root causes, I would suggest searching the web for examples. They are plentiful and vary in different contexts. I see various ones every day like lack of training, taking shortcuts to save time, insufficient oversight, lack of communication, vague requirements, etc. Saving Changes...
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