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Evaluate and Reduce Project Risk

The only projects that don't have risk are when it doesn't matter how long it will take, it doesn't matter how much it will cost, & it doesn't matter what will be implemented.

  • Project management process, methods, and tools mitigate project risk.

  • All projects have some risk.

  • The key question is; how much risk is tolerable?

  • The less risk you can tolerate or accept the more process you need, the more knowledge and skills, and the more effective your methods and tools need to be

  • The more your project needs to be completed by a specific date, at a specific cost, and deliver specific deliverables and behavior the more you need a project management process

  • Project management balances the 3 sides of a triangle, Schedule, Cost, and Deliverables Quality

  • These 3 elements are interrelated, change one or when you absolutely need to meet one the other two will be affected

  • Assumptions Drive Risk:

  • Identify what’s being assumed

  • If you assume something will or won't happen that's a risk

  • Assign someone on the core team record assumptions and identify risks

  • To identify what someone is assuming observe what’s stated and implied

  • Validate assumptions

  • Ask seemingly dumb questions

  • "It appears that you're assuming that..., is that true?

  • Describe the risk items

  • Quantify & prioritize each item

  • Quantify each risk item’s impact on a scale of 1 – 5 with 1 = low, 5 = high & probability % that it will happen.

  • Multiply impact X probability. Example Impact 4 X Probability of 95% 4 X .95 = 3.8.

  • Develop a mitigation plan for the top items & include the mitigation plans in the project.

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