24 April 2009

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Plan for Everyday Risks: Brace for the Ordinary

By Carl Pritchard, PMI-RMP, PMP

When we think of risk and risk processes, we tend to think of those efforts that preclude us from encountering the catastrophic.  But the processes that really have high yield are those that give us the ability to deal with the day-to-day challenges in our projects.

Projects don’t normally die in a single massive conflagration.

Instead, they suffer the “death by a thousand paper cuts.”

The PMBOK^® Guide risk processes are not designed to deal exclusively with the big threats that hang over our efforts. They also address the everyday concerns. While the tools selection might be a little bit different, the process remains the same.

Liken your project to an urban commute ...

The topic for this article is based on a suggestion from a PMI member in Michigan, USA.

You know that certain risks exist. Heavy traffic, police presence or inclement weather may slow you down. You know these threats are likely, and where they are likely to occur. You even know how and when it’s time to surrender and take an alternate route.

But if someone unfamiliar with these risks becomes the driver, your normal commute can turn into a multi-hour headache.

For our projects, we can leverage institutional knowledge and manage everyday risks with some of the simplest of tools:

• Checklists provide a simple form of identification
• Warning flags and clearly documented triggers establish basic risk qualification
• Standardized alternative approaches create standard responses to risks

Having in place these day-to-day practices can save us – and others –  from making mistakes. These practices:

• Stop us from forcing individuals to relearn what others in the organization already know.
• Allow us to avoid the perils of learning by discovery
• Create infrastructure that makes risk management integral with your normal managerial behavior

Development of alternative approaches and the use of checklists and warning flags take small amounts of organizational memory. And you can commit them to practices that your coworkers can follow consistently, whether or not you are there to coach them.

Will these simple processes preserve us from all project peril? No. In fact, such processes do not address the major, catastrophic events that many organizations dread.

But setting up everyday risk practices for day-to-day events frees you, your team and your organization to examine the larger-scale risk events that genuinely merit your focus.

Carl Pritchard, EVP, PMP instructs the e-SeminarsWorld^SM course, Managing Multiple Projects. He is president of Pritchard Management Associates, a presentation, training and consulting firm that firmly believes that project management should be fun and memorable. Mr. Pritchard is also a PMI SeminarsWorld^® leader and a chapter author for A Guide the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^® Guide)—Fourth Edition. He has taught risk and project management around the world since 1993, and invites your questions or comments.