Risk Happen. Managing risk and avoiding failure in buisness projects

The six fundamental strategies for managing project risk are:
· Remove the risk
· Reduce likelihood
· Reduce impact
· Contingency plan
· Transfer risk
· Accept the risk

Some methodologies offer you a predetermined set of “causes”. In the manufacturing sector, the 5M approach uses machinery, manpower, materials, methods and money. The McKinsey 7S model offers strategy, systems, staff, skills, style, shared values and structure. PESTLE analysis focuses on political, economic, social, technology, legal and environmental factors.

A RACI chart is a useful tool for tracking stakeholders and recording how they will interact with elements of your scope.

Since you cannot please all of your stakeholders all of the time, determining your scope must involve negotiation. As with all negotiations, you will need to assess your stakeholders, evaluate their needs, and make decisions about who to please and who to disappoint.

Scope is most easily represented by a boundary. Everything inside this boundary is “in scope” – this is the project’s task and the project manager’s responsibility. Everything outside the boundary is “out of scope”.

Time, cost and quality form the project management Time-Cost-Quality Triangle.

Project risk can be defined as uncertainty that can affect outcomes, so your first step in reducing risk is to remove uncertainty. In the earliest stages of your project, start by working hard to remove uncertainty about your project’s goal and objectives by consulting widely, then defining and documenting them as clearly and unambiguously as you can.