In this webcast, Cornelius Fichtner and Dr. David Hillson look at project risk management for business leaders and project leaders through the metaphor of a risk hurricane. Risk management has become a standard part of the strategic tool kit, providing senior leaders with a forward-looking radar to scan the future and give early warnings of approaching threats and opportunities. However, even best-in-class organizations can falter in the face of extreme risk exposure. Special circumstances demand special responses, and extreme risk exposure needs very careful handling. Routine risk management ..read more

Want to know how to create a winning business strategy? To define a winning business strategy, companies should always take into consideration all types of risks that may occur at every level of an organization. As risks are part of the company’s strategy, they can affect portfolios, programs, and even projects. There are two types of risks:  positive and negative. These risks can influence the organization based on how they are managed. Today, more than in the past, companies are benefiting from integrating strategic risk analysis into their overall management strategy and planning proce ..read more

Learn about how and when to use Agile methodology. Over countless years and projects, Project Managers (PMs) have been working to define a better, faster, and easier way to deal with the need for structure. From this work comes most methodologies and standards that are in existence today. One major problem that often gets PMs in trouble during a project concerns the discrepancy between their understanding and the executive’s understanding of how fast a project can be executed when utilizing Agile methodologies. First, before we go any further with this article, I want to say that I have nothin ..read more

Find out how executive management support protects your project against uncertainty. I’ll start by sharing my experience about a time when I went camping with my friend who is an aeronautical engineer and who is also very interested in astronomy. Out of the city, very far away from the city lights, we started traveling in the sky with his advanced telescope. As the feeling of how tiny we were in the giant space covered my whole body, I came up with Jupiter. It was amazing to be able to see its four satellites. “Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, and its volume is over 1,300 tim ..read more

Looking for ways to reduce deviations? The answer can be found in risk-based thinking. Risk management is one of the key knowledge areas that supports project managers for project success. The proactive nature of this project management helps project managers think and apply preventive measures that not only save on the cost of change but also save on schedules. The successful application of risk management has made this knowledge area an indispensable chapter not only in the PMI’s PMBOK Guides in all editions, including the sixth edition, but also in the latest quality management systems such ..read more

Like safety and quality, risk management is a state of mind with forethought. It cannot be simply boiled down into a set of tools and techniques. There are tools and techniques involved, but to be truly effective at risk management requires a trained mind — a situational awareness. The mind needs to focus on the what-ifs and how to address them and focus on situational awareness. Interested in finding out about situational awareness for managing risk? Read further. Similar to driving a car or flying a plane, being situationally aware helps to identify potential risk points. For example, when y ..read more

Humans have certain tendencies when it comes to remembering details of events when time has had a chance to distort the memory of those events. Some call it bias, some call it optimism or pessimism. How do these distortions impact our capacity to conduct risk management? Ever since I got involved in risk management, I noticed that stakeholders sometimes have a distorted view of certain risks which they carry with them from project to project. This can be based on their lack of risk knowledge, but it is most often due to the fact that they have experienced something similar in the past. I have ..read more

Learn more about the role of a risk register in project management. A key element that contributes to the clear understanding of any risk is its description or definition, usually found in one of the first columns of the risk register. Based on this simple description, we will support an entire risk process. There is no room for being vague or unclear. Unfortunately, we generally spend no time or thought on this important component which might lead us to over or underestimate the risks of the project in the long run. The project has started, and with it, a brand-new risk register is created, f ..read more

In my lectures, when it comes to the topic of managing risks, I start with a figure just to illustrate the importance of managing risks. This figure shows that the chances of risks occurring decreases as the project comes to an end, whereas the cost to fix risk events increases within this time period. The uncertainty is generally at the highest level at the start of projects, and it decreases as time passes because more information becomes available throughout the project life cycle. On the other hand, the cost of change increases as the project progresses throughout its life cycle due to the ..read more

Meeting project goals means developing steps to meeting project delivery dates and budgets. Project managers who follow these seven high-level project management tips will achieve on-time, on-budget, goal-focused delivery of high-profile projects, thereby increasing their project success rates and career prospects. According to the Project Management Institute’s 2017 “Pulse of the Profession” global survey, organizations are wasting $97 million for every $1 billion invested due to poor project performance. Yes, that’s a 20 percent decline from the previous year’s survey, but the truth is, proj ..read more