Risk management can pro-actively improve project team performance.

There are many potential causes of unsuccessful project execution which can plague a project team.  If you know what they are and implement preventive measures to avoid these pit-falls you will obviously improve your team’s chances of success.  What are these concerns?  It might be considered a bit too bold to say you have identified them all, but I decided to attempt it nonetheless — I produced a fish-bone (i.e., cause and effect) diagram which captures the most prevalent issues I’ve encountered over my career, and I’ve introduced this in my book “Project Risk Management: A Practical Implementation Approach.”  When developing this chart, I noticed that there were categories which were more heavily influenced by the PM and project team (i.e., Planning, Management and Controls, Communications and Leadership), as well as others which were more heavily influenced by the organization and other external factors (i.e., the Product Development Process, the Organizational Tools, Resources made available to the project teams, and other Business/External Factors).  Yes, the onus is not just on the shoulders of the PMs and team members — there are specific organizational responsibilities as well.  “Doing more with less” in an effective way requires that kind of vision.