Managing Technology and Product Development Programmes

7Identifying and Managing Engineering Risks

7.1 Introduction

Chapters 2 and 6 drew attention to two fundamental, and sometimes opposing, aspects of product and technology development work:

• The creative element of the process, developing new ideas to solve problems and to improve people's well‐being.
• The element of risk which those new engineering solutions might introduce in terms of reliability, robustness, or creation of other forms of harm or danger.

This chapter is concerned with the second of these points – the identification of risks that require attention. Chapter 8 then deals with how those risks might be reduced or eliminated through engineering development work.

Risk is a widely used term, and its simplest definition is perhaps given by the Cambridge English Dictionary: ‘the possibility of something bad happening’. Within the engineering and technology community, it is essentially ‘the possibility of something going wrong’. A more technical description can be found in the Risk Management Guide for DoD Acquisition: ‘Risk is a measure of the potential inability to achieve overall program objectives within defined cost, schedule, and technical constraints’. Risk in this context is normally considered to have two elements: the frequency of a potentially hazardous event and the severity of its consequences.

It should be noted that the concern in this book is with engineering or technical risks that can be addressed through the engineering development process. Other forms ...