A - Project Initiation
A02 - Appoint the project manager
A03 - Appoint the key team members
A05 - Identify and plan the deliverables
A06 - Identify risks and plan responses
A07 - Have project initiation peer-reviewed
B - Monthly Initiation
B01 - Revise and refine the plans
B02 - Have the monthly cycle peer-reviewed
B03 - Make a go/no-go decision
C - Weekly Management
C01 - Measure and report performance
C02 - Plan responses for deviations
D - Daily Management
E - Monthly Closure
F - Project Closure
F02 - Evaluate stakeholder satisfaction
F03 - Have the closing activity group peer-reviewed
G - Post-Project Management
A06 - Identify risks and plan responses
This management activity belongs to the Project Initiation group. This group of activities are run at the beginning to prepare us for the project.
Conduct workshops with key team members to first identify risks, and then to plan responses to them. Store the information in the Follow‑Up Register.
Based on the identified risks and planned responses, you may need to adjust the Project Description and the Deliverables Map as well.
If a similar project has been done before, check its archive to learn more about the risks related to your project.
Purpose
The main reason for identifying risks is to plan responses to them proactively, because it’s much easier and cheaper to control risks before they materialize rather than after.
Common pitfalls
The following helps you avoid some of the commonest pitfalls in risk management:
- Don’t record general, unclear items as risks.
- Don’t record general, unclear items as risk responses – only design actionable responses that can be implemented and evaluated.
- Don’t record the potential impacts of uncertain events as risks – it’s the uncertain events themselves that we need to evaluate, and those are what we call risks.
- Assign a custodian to be responsible for the follow-up actions of each risk. It’s best to spread this responsibility among many team members rather than just a few of them.
Principles
The following principles play a significant role in this management activity: