144 Project Management
danger to achieving a successful and predictable project out-
come, ordinarily by considering the probability that a specific
problem will occur and its anticipated impact on the project.
Step 4.Response (dealing with the threats). Determine the
best approaches for addressing each high-threat potential prob-
lem, which may include evaluating and choosing among a
number of alternatives, and create specific action plans.
Now let’s take a closer look at each of these four steps.Identifying What Can Hurt You
The first step in the risk management process is figuring out
what you’re up against. What kinds of things threaten your abili-
ty to deliver what you’ve promised? As mentioned earlier, it all
begins with the uncertainty of not knowing exactly how things
are going to turn out. This is just another way of saying that
many aspects of projects are unpredictable, despite our best
efforts to nail them down. Figure 8-2 lists some of the most
common areas of uncertainty.
From these sources of uncertainty spring problems. Prob-
lems are what you need to uncover, specific potential problems,
as many as you can think of. But how do you go about identify-
ing problems? There’s no magic formula for identifying potential
threats to your project. It’s going to require specific knowledge
of the project, significant brainpower, and the ability to specu-
late. Hmmm....that sounds like an excellent opportunity for a
teambuilding event.
In Chapter 5, we discussed how some of the best teambuild-
ing events are ones where team members expand their knowl-
edge of each other and the project at the same time. Identifying
potential problems as a team is an ideal way to accomplish
that. I characterize the effect of events like this as building the
collective intelligence of the team.
Specifically, your approach begins by getting the entire team
together. I recommend reserving at least two to four hours,
depending upon project size and complexity. Gather every piece