Are You Managing Risk or is it Managing You?

Guest Post by Paul Kostek (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

You’ve completed your project’s Risk Management Plan and now you can move forward with project execution because all of the project’s risks have been identified what can go wrong?  Well plenty.  It’s easy to get caught up in weekly (daily) reviews of the identified risks, tracking status (are the boxes going green, yellow, oh no red?).

Yet while this activity is happening are we missing something?  Is a supplier falling behind schedule;  component availability/obsolescence sliding quietly under view;  and the impact of a natural disaster (we could do an entire article on limited supply chains and the impact of earthquakes, floods (hard drives) fires (in Germany this lead to the shutdown of the only producer of a resin used for auto fuel systems) on delivery of project components/subsystems.

So what should we do?  First,  monitor the identified risks with the expectation that your team will be addressing them as they work, second look for other hidden risks that might become an issue.  Consider risk during design reviews, test planning, manufacturing audits, any time suppliers or design teams meet.  What did we miss at the beginning of the project and what should we be focused on now?

Bottom-line, risk is an on-going project activity that needs to be continually monitored and assessed as a project moves through it’s phases.

Bio of Paul J. Kostek

Paul J. Kostek is a Principal of Air Direct Solutions, a systems engineering/project management consulting firm. He works with companies in defining system architecture, system requirements, interface definition, verification planning, risk management and software development standards. Paul received his BS from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.   Paul works in a range of industries including: aerospace, defense, medical device and e-commerce.

Paul is a long-time volunteer with several professional engineering societies including IEEE, AIAA, SAE, INCOSE and PMI.  He also writes for the CERM.