Executives comprehend Percentage Confidence better than the Risk Matrix.

What do executives really think of the risk matrix data?  The data can be extremely useful if generated properly, but what is its real purpose?  Most believe that the executive management team can discern overall project risk confidence from it.  But that is not what the tool provides.  It provides information regarding individual risks, not overall project risk.  This data enables us to identify where actions should be taken to stay within the organization’s risk tolerance threshold, and improve chances of project success.  To get to an executive level understanding of overall project risk, the project team must be able to convert the individual risk level data into an overall percentage confidence in meeting critical project objectives – executives can better comprehend this type of information.  This level of information can be effectively obtained use Modelling and Simulation tools and techniques.  The content of my book, “Project Risk Management: A Practical Implementation Approach,” covers this subject in detail.  The bottom-line is, without this overall project data (and using only the risk matrix data), the executive team and project team may very well be confused about the viability of the project plan.  In some cases, organizational leaders are under the perception that none of the risks should really materialize as issues, and thus, will likely expect the team to effectively meet its commitments without “excuses”.  This is a poor assumption, and a dangerous expectation, especially for complex projects which are attempting to “do more with less”, and whereby team performance is highly scrutinized.