It's said that "Unknown unknowns" are risks that cannot be foreseen and this can cause serious impacts on the project and the organization. Can we use any methodology to deal with these situations? Can we just transfer those risks to an insurance company? What happens if these risks aren't covered by the insurance? What are your ideas on this matter? Saving Changes...
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Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Pedro, resilience, wisdom, and being able to cope with any change in the environment is a solution. I would recommend avoiding trying to look at details and breaking things down but instead using systems thinking and a holistic perspective. Panta Rhei. Saving Changes...
There are specific unknown risks which might be covered through general insurance policies, but others would not be. For example, in 2019 very few companies would have had insurance coverage for the schedule and financial impacts to their projects of pandemics.
Management reserves at the project or portfolio level are one way of dealing with unknown-unknowns but it is also a good idea to look at the resilience of a project approach and team to see how much they can bend and at what point they will break and decide whether adjustments to project scope or approach might make things more anti-fragile.
It's true resilience could be a key factor but when projects are very complex, the impact of such risks can be overwhelming. Perhaps new methodologies and approaches must be developed to deal with this problem. In fact "unknown unknowns" are an epistemological issue and increasing our knowledge about everything related to the project could reduce their potential impact and the possible unknown risks that we cannot see. A more dynamic risk identification and project knowledge management could be the key to deal with this. Saving Changes...
