In spite of all the planning and thinking done, all projects face unforeseen pitfalls. Experienced Project Managers know this and try to look ahead and predict such pitfalls beforehand and find means to avoid them.
Having planned the project in some details, the next step is to carry out a risk assessment to see how robust the plans are. The suggested procedure is as follows:
1. Brainstorm the Risks and Implementation Issues
Identify the risks and implementation issues with a straightforward brainstorm of all the things that could disrupt the project – things that could cause problems when you start implementing the project.
• Best done with the project team and relevant others.
• Sometimes called creating a “risk register”
2. Prioritise them on a Hi-Lo diagram
Take each item on the risk register and map them on a Hi-Lo diagram (illustrated below) as to
• how likely they are to occur and
• how much impact they would have on the project.
3. Develop actions to reduce the risks
For each of the high priority items (highly likely to happen and with a high impact on the project), identify ways to defuse them and reduce the risks:
- either changes to reduce the likelihood of them happening
- changes to reduce their impact on the project if they did happen.
