Obviously, a project postmortem will not improve the project that just ended, but it can certainly improve future projects within that organization, if conducted with integrity. Most organizations tend to want the team to wrap up the project with a retrospective assessment of what caused the good and poor outcomes. The easiest (i.e., most uncontroversial)… Continue reading Project Postmortems close the loop on Holistic Risk Management.
Parkinson’s Law 2 states that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” So what does this imply? That we are either going to meet our commitments, are miss them – we are not likely to do better than the targets we set. This is obviously counter to “doing more with… Continue reading Parkinson’s Law versus Project Risk Management and “doing more with less”.
In some organizations, budget reserves and schedule buffers are taboo. I have heard countless arguments on both sides of this issue. I am an advocate of doing what makes most sense for the organization, its culture and its valuable human resources. Those which conduct a multitude of complex, highly scrutinized projects (e.g., risky contracts), and… Continue reading Budget Reserves and Schedule Buffers can be Palatable.
Some schedules represent credible tasks logically and can be used for tracking progress, and some are art projects that may be pleasing to the eye but are primarily worthless. Tired of dealing with vendors and programs trying to manage complex and expensive efforts using art projects, the US Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) developed and… Continue reading Requirements Control is a key to effective project risk management.
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… Continue reading Executives comprehend Percentage Confidence better than the Risk Matrix.
Signing up to a schedule based on the project’s IMS critical path, without any buffer, is usually a losing proposition, especially if the project is complex and team performance is highly scrutinized. This topic is treated in detail within my book, “Project Risk Management: A Practical Implementation Approach.” Several factors tend to skew our schedules… Continue reading The Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) Critical Path May be Misleading.
The risk matrix has become pretty much a staple within the project risk management family of tools and techniques, especially for the more complex and highly scrutinized projects. It portrays a relatively easy-to-comprehend visual of individual project risk status. One example of a risk matrix can be found on page 84 of my book, “Project… Continue reading No Risks should remain in the “Red Zone” of the Risk Matrix.
A fundamental risk management concept to always keep in mind is the relationship between the project risk profile over the course of the project timeline and the cost of change profile over that same timeline. Cost, in the context of this discussion could be any combination of Project Schedule, Cost or Product Quality/Technical Capability that… Continue reading Project Risk versus the Cost of Change.
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… Continue reading The significance of utilizing “Best Practices” relative to project risk management.
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… Continue reading Risk management can pro-actively improve project team performance.
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