SensiblePM 013 | Risk Management with Carl Pritchard

02/24/14 • 62 min

“The Risk Guy”, Carl Pritchard, takes us on a fun journey in a very practical discussion about Risk Management. He talks about the importance of having a good risk plan for your projects. We also learn both about the governance aspect of risk management as well as how to manage the risks themselves. Mark held this discussion with Carl in the Sensible Project Manager Hangout Community on #PMHangout29 using Google+ Hangouts and if you wish you can watch the video or listen via the podcast feed below.

Listen to the Podcast

Risk Management concepts that were covered during discussion.

There are two elements in risk management.
- Governance
  - Know where you want to be.
  - Know where you want to go.
  - Know what you are afraid of.
- Managing Project Risk
  - What are the things that might happen to us that we hadn’t planned on?
  - What do we do about them?
What risks should we be worried about?
It is important to create a risk brand.
Risk Management Plan
- Define the project terminology for the project.
- Define tolerances for the project.
- Identify Risk for the projects.
  - Don’t use traditional brainstorming when identifying risks.
  - Make sure you involve all of the stakeholders when developing your risks.
  - The Crawford Slip method of handing out post-it notes and everyone produces one risk every minute is a great method of identifying risks.
  - The nominal group method by having stakeholders write a list of risks is another good way to identify risks.
  - Provide a format for the stakeholders when they are writing their risks which includes the cause and effect.
- Qualify the risks to identify the levels in which each risk occurs.
- Identify the risk strategies for each risk.
- The following are the strategies that can be invoked when working with risks:
  - Accept the risk.
  - Mitigate the risk.
    - Minimize the probability that the risk is going to happen.
    - Minimize the impact if the risk happens.
  - Transfer the risk.
  - Avoid the risk.
- Monitor and control the risks.
- Record and measure the risks.

Resources and Links that will help you learn more about each framework:

Books Carl Pritchard Authored

Nuts and Bolts Series 1: How to Build a Work Breakdown Structure (Beginnings)

Precedence Diagramming: Successful Scheduling in a Team Environment, Second Edition (Project Management Nuts and Bolts)

Project Management: Lessons from the Field

Project Management Drill Book: A Self-Study Guide

Contacting Carl Pritchard

You can find Carl’s website at Pritchard Management Associates

You can email Carl at [email protected]

Question? Leave me a voice-mail

If you have a question about anything that was discussed in this episode you can ask the question right now using voice-mail. Just select the “Send Voice-mail” button on the right side of the screen.

Also, I would love to hear your thoughts about future topics for the podcast or any other way I can help you in your Project Management career. Just leave me a voice-mail and I may feature your question or comment in a future episode.

Comments

Now that you have heard Carl share his thoughts about Risk Management, share in the comments below a specific example where having a good Risk Management Plan helped you on your project.

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