Project Risk
Management
According
to Daye Bail (2014), ‘the risk management is a process that identifies,
assesses, and prioritises the risk of different kinds’. Mr Bail has further
given the explanation of it in words that the project manager is responsible to
inform the risk manager to create a plan for minimizing or eliminating the
effects of any possible negative event. A number of strategies are available
for this purpose. Their selection is based upon the type of risk and business
we are likely to use. The existence of such a risk event highly impacts the
scope of the project, its time, cost, quality, and various other factors during
the project management procedure. This is why, one should keep an eye on all
these factors to minimize the risks accompanying the project. Regardless of the
fact that if an event takes place from an internal factor or external factor,
or how serious the risk may be, proactive risk management is playing its key
role in the various management procedures.
A stakeholder is any individual who can affect of be
affected by the company/ organization, a strategy or even a project. This is a
process and visual tool used in strategy particularly in analysis of the stake
holders. The map is meant to weigh the company and check its position in order
to realize its mission and goals to be the best computer producing industry and
serve all the stakeholders with equality and the best services possible. The various procedures and
techniques that he can use in the risk analysis are Event Tree Analysis, Fault
Tree Analysis, and Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA). I believe that FMEA is
the key tool Mr Bail had made use of for determining the results and analysing
project risks because of its evaluation of potential risks. It also provides
sufficient information that can help in mitigating or eliminating strategies.
Moreover, he explained that once we apply FMEA, potential failure modes can be
categorized into three specific indications: Severity, Occurrence, and
Detection. No doubt, the vast experience of this person has greatly helped him
in the identification of the risks at every stage and phase of the project, and
even at its very outset. In the next step, he has outlined the mitigating
strategies in accordance with the severity of a particular risk of the project
stages.
We
can not limit the risk management procedure to any predetermined standard. It
can vary from one project to another as per the objectives, outcomes,
strategies, plans, and stakeholder specifications of an organization. But
generally speaking, the procedure involves the mechanisms of proactive
identification, analysis, evaluation, and proper treatment of the risks by
means of repeated communication, and consultation. Also there is a need of
proper monitoring of the given information as per the review. A number of tools
can help in such situations. These are needed to buy for registering the risks
associated with a project lifecycle in a proper way. As it has been made clear
that risk consists of a different nature and the process continues throughout
the lifecycle of a project, thus we can say that it is one of the most cases
that can be handled manually by the project managers. They can handle such
situations using a risk register. Mr Bail is general project risk management
process is discussed below.
Initiating and
planning stage
Mr
Bail gives high preference to the management of a project risks at its initial
stages through proper planning. Also he likes to name such a stage, “the golden
stage”. This is the stage where we can manage all the possible risks of a
project and minimize their negative impacts. For becoming familiar with all the
stages of the planning, Mr Bail says that he is a true believer of feasibility
studies. He also considers that all stakeholders’ opinions and proper
definition of project scale is must. Also he says that the complexity of the
project must be checked and dealt with in a proper way, because this will help
us gather necessary information to begin planning. Also we’ll be able to
undertake a proper risk assessment. Both the scale and complexity matter
because according to definition, they help increasing the chances for unknowns.
In addition, having the projects based on “thorough and understandable
information” is greatly helpful to gain the commitment of all stakeholders.
According
to Mr. Bail, another important aspect one should keep in mind is that the
processes must be kept in place to disseminating all relevant information to
the project stakeholders. In this way, they can get fully involved in the
proper planning and can know its different stages to express their concerns
about every stage of the project anytime. This is the easiest and quickest way
to make proper changes. The involvement of stakeholders can lead a project to
be assessed appropriately from different points of view. In this way, it is
also possible that the risks can be managed much more effectively. For example,
Mr Bail has explained that planners can do everything possible for the
determination of exactly what work is needed to be done, although essentially
this is only one input. It ultimately results in the things getting missed. It
is important to note that other inputs and all options need to be moved forward
into the next stage at their proper times. This is only possible when the goals
are clear to everyone, and they are set in the definition phase of the project.
This guarantees that stakeholders are on the same page. When we talk about
contractors, it is important to provide all relevant information to them before
we sign a contract in order for them to cost their work properly.
Subsequently,
Mr Bail gave explanation that it is important to understand that there is a
strong need of proper planning to understand the risks. In addressing this
concern, Mr Bail believes that feasibility studies are significant and crucial
to understand the costs. It is also helpful to get good ideas of what the risks
are. He has explained that this is one of the most critical aspects of managing
risk in a project, however knowing this would lead an engineer no where until
he does well in his project. In case, they don’t have the skills to identify
the risks at this point, they will fail. A technique Mr Bail is using is
reviewing past projects and learning from them. Also there is a need for him to
review his mistakes and cope up with them properly. This is called reflective
learning. With it, Mr Bail can effectively identify the risks in similar projects
in the future.
Executing and
controlling stage
During
the project, Mr Bail states that the most effective way to deal with unforeseen
risks is to get involved in the project in collaboration with the contractor to
come up with most suitable and feasible solutions of the problems that are
likely to take place. As such, Mr Bail truly believes that leaving it all for
the contractor to deal with or keeping the contractor out of the decision
making, both would both have detrimental impacts on the final results of the
project. This is beneficial at times when we find it difficult to face the
contractor for making profitable decisions and for coming up with best results.
Mr Bail prefers to work with reputable contractors, not those who offer cheap
services and low-quality results.
