Risks
and Issues: Focusing
Stakeholder Interest
by Andrea Brockmeier, PMP
It's safe to say that good project management
is characterized by “proactivity”—intervening
in or influencing a response to something before it
happens. You know you're doing a good job of risk management
in projects, for example, when you are doing something
before the risk events occur. (In this article, I am specifically
referring to negative risk events or threats, as opposed
to positive risk events or opportunities.) In fact, the
PMBOK® Guide suggests that “To be successful,
the organization should be committed to address risk management
proactively and consistently throughout the project.” Additionally,
it says that failure to do so “...can potentially
lead to project failure.” But how proactive are we,
really? Take, for instance, our interest in issues. One
of the more usable definitions of an issue is a risk that
has already happened. Thus, an issue is our inability,
unwillingness, or failure to be proactive.
Considering the importance of proactivity,
it's interesting that so much stakeholder interest is focused
on issues. Every status report I've ever written has significant
space devoted to issues. Not nearly the interest has been
paid to risk status. What if those interested in project
status were to focus a bit more on risk events before they
happen as opposed to after they happen. What would it take
for management to give up status report space on issues
and share it with risks? If we spent a fraction of our
time keeping an eye on risk events rather than issues,
how might the organization benefit? To get a more concrete
understanding of this, it would be interesting to quantify
resources expended responding to issues and be able to
compare that to what it would have taken to proactively
respond to the risk event.
On your next project, try quantifying
as much as possible what a proactive response to your top
risks would take. That is, can you estimate the time and/or
money that it might take to avoid, transfer, or mitigate
that event. Then, add a couple of columns to your issue
log to include the time, money, and other resources spent
addressing each issue that comes up. Although it's more
difficult to quantify, include the intangible costs such
as team frustration or compromised trust, as well. The
goal would be to have a reasonable comparison of metrics
around the cost of preventing risk events as opposed to
the cost of responding to them once they've occurred.
Another strategy in promoting attention
to risks would be to require that issues and risks be considered
separately. In status meetings, discussion around issues
will typically distract them from a discussion of risks.
It does, actually, make sense that events that have already
happened demand more attention. But, that shouldn't preclude
a discussion of events that have yet to happen, their status,
and any changes to probability or impact. So, whether it's
a separate meeting (preferred), or agenda items at different
points in the same meeting, keep them distinct and don't
give issues a chance to steal the show.
To those of you who do spend a fair amount
of time developing and implementing proactive responses
to risks, hats off! But, many of us do a fair job of identifying
risks, then spend more of our project time reporting on
issues at the expense of being proactive with risk responses.
Perhaps there's an opportunity to encourage stakeholders
to spend a little more time looking out the windshield
rather than the rear-view mirror.
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© 2008 Watermark
Learning, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Do not
copy, distribute, or present without written permission
from Watermark Learning. Published as part of 2008 PMI
Global Congress Proceedings - Denver, Colorado, USA
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