When it comes to any project that you are managing, risk management is vital. Here we look at 5 risk management techniques to use on your next project to ensure a successful outcome.
Risk management in projects is often treated as a low priority task, however, it is of vital importance to each and every project. A project that does not have an effective risk management strategy in place is one that is far more likely to fail. And why would any project manager want to take that chance?
Yet, despite this potentially stark outcome, there are far too many project managers who do not put enough effort into appropriate risk management. After all, there are emails to deal with, contractors and clients to meet, tasks to plan and teams to motivate. These time pressures can often lead to project managers delegating risk management to a less-experienced member of the team or, worse, neglecting it completely.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Here we look at 5 simple risk management techniques that you could use on your next project to help things run more smoothly and deliver your project more successfully. But remember that there is also a human side to risk management too – it’s not all about the techniques.
1.Understand your project
It is vital as project manager that you understand the key factors that will ultimately determine the success, or failure, of your project. This will offer you the best chance of success when it comes to identifying project risks and prioritising those risks; and will have a huge impact on the end result of your project.
2. Know your boundaries
We all know the importance of the scope of a project overall, but it is equally important to understand the risk boundaries you are responsible for. Risk planning that goes to the extreme in identifying all possible risks, no matter how unlikely their occurrence, will waste unnecessary time and effort. Understanding that your individual project is not responsible for every possible risk in your organisation will enable you to get discard those risks that do not fall into your remit. These are the risks that you should be passing to other departments who do have responsibility for managing them.
3. Accurately describe your risks
The more accurately you can describe the risks involved in your project the easier they will be to manage. Describing them incorrectly may mean the severity of the risk and the consequences are under-estimated; with potentially disastrous results on your project. All consequences attached to a risk should be included in the description but should be assessed separately. This will allow you to correctly assess the impact of a risk occurring.
4. Remove perceived risks that are irrelevant
It is also important to separate risks that could affect your project outcome from those risks that are not relevant. Failing to do this could leave you with too many risks to monitor and manage. This would quickly drain resources and distract from the benefits of risk management as you struggle to determine what is, and what isn’t, of concern to the outcome of your work.
5. Risk mitigations should be realistic and achievable
Risk mitigations should never be ideal solutions in an ideal world. They must respect project objectives, scope, budget and time constraints so that they offer a realistic option to complete a project successfully if any of the identified risks do occur. Focusing on realistic and achievable mitigating strategies will help you to produce a risk management plan that will ultimately assist you towards a successful project conclusion – even if any of the predicted risks occur.
And, a final word, remember that there is also a human side to risk management too – it’s not all about the techniques.