Risk Windows
I work on waterfall projects in electrical utilities. I'm looking for information about a visual display that my Business Intelligence (BI) team rolled out; They call it 'risk windows'.
They look at each risk and the schedule activities to find risks which could indicate the beginning of when the risk might occur, and other risks which mark when the risk can be retired. The 'window' is the period between the dates determined above
They roll out BI to produce an X-Y plot with time on the horizontal axis and the number of risks 'in the window' on the vertical axis. The result as a simple X-Y plot with value which changes daily.
Has anyone experienced this type of risk display? If so, can you just acknowledge if your organization uses risk windows. Other info about this display is welcome.
More if you want it:
- They also display the percentage of the window time which has transpired for each risk. When that value exceeds 100% (by a lot in many cases) they adjust the window end date. Since the dates are based on activity start/finish, these 100% transgressions are just the normal variance in project schedules. They spend more time picking new dates; I don't understand why the window does not auto adjust to the revised activity.
- I also question the value of this display. A lot of time is spent modifying window dates, when it could be spent checking the effectiveness of the risk response efforts. There is clearly no action which would be precisely timed by this display, and they're taking away the focus on individual risks. I told my BI team that they could not see the trees for the forest; the team was not amused. Saving Changes...
While I haven't seen or used risk windows before across multiple verticals and hundreds of clients I've worked with, the underlying principle is intriguing. There is certainly value in understanding when a given risk might be realized and when it has expired so that risk handling efforts and costs can be optimized but as with everything risk related, if the cost of a risk management approach practice exceeds the benefits gained, something needs to change. Saving Changes...
