Rescue the Problem Project

CHAPTER19

Properly Dealingwith Risk

“Fate laughs at probabilities.”

—E. G. Bulwer-Lytton, Member of Parliament,Novelist, Eugene Aram: A Tale

Most project managers have a poor understanding of how to quantify risk or how risk analysis can benefit the project. For that reason, they create a risk register at the beginning of a project to fulfill a PMO requirement, but then never update or review it. In fact, frustration is so high that they fail to fully identify risk items or generate reasonable mitigations. To exacerbate the problem, their managers have an equally poor understanding.

For numerous red projects, the risk register is either missing or the entries are too simplistic—omitting potential impact, probability of occurrence, or realistic ...