| You will often hear about the Project Risk Log and | | | | their tasks done, it offers them a way out. So for |
| how important it is to the successful delivery of a | | | | example if there are potential resourcing issues, you |
| project. Apparently this one document contains all the | | | | want your workstream leads to find a way to |
| risks surrounding the project and enables them to be | | | | resolve this rather than writing it down as a problem |
| mitigated to ensure they don’t impact the | | | | and washing their hands of it. |
| delivery should they occur. Well that’s the theory | | | | Despite this, an entire cottage industry appears to |
| anyway. The practice is of course very different. | | | | have grown up around this whole project area, very |
| You soon realise this as a Project Manager when | | | | little of it devoted to ensuring the correct information |
| attending your first Risk Workshop. Loads of people | | | | is documented and mitigated. I know this from first |
| attend, few of whom you know, and all are | | | | hand experience. In a recent project I managed over |
| frantically typing down any and everything imaginable. | | | | three hundred were raised. They ranged from the |
| It is when the Workshop starts going through | | | | valid to the most mind boggling. Despite this when |
| everything detailed that you feel your heart sinking | | | | the project was cancelled not one risk had been |
| as you discover the only risk known to mankind not | | | | written down which covered the reason; that the |
| listed is the one involving the possibility of a | | | | credit crunch might force household incomes down |
| meteorite hitting earth and wiping out all the | | | | and hence make it a bad time to increase product |
| programmers! | | | | prices. |
| Before you know it you have four hundred project | | | | From my perspective there is definitely a key role to |
| risks listed and no way of reducing them. Worse still, | | | | play in a project with regard to risk documentation, |
| all of these will have to be regularly maintained and | | | | management and mitigation. The problem is that this |
| updated. It basically becomes a major work overhead | | | | has to be done correctly and in an effective way. If |
| which you could easily do without. | | | | not then maintaining a log becomes an overwhelming |
| And yet the obsession with risk continues. It has | | | | task and ends up with the Project Manager |
| almost become something of a way for | | | | forgetting about the actual delivery of the project. |
| workstreams to make excuses upfront for their lack | | | | This soon leads to scope creep, budget overspends |
| of delivery, because instead of forcing them to get | | | | and eventually project failure. |