About How to Identify and Manage Critical Project Risks

Optimizing Your Risk Management Effort One ongoing project management debate concerns whether risks can really be "managed" at all. Assuming that project business risk can be managed, should it be, and if so, when? In this Webcast youll discover ways to understand when its a good idea to manage a risk and when it may not be. Its obvious that doing something about a risk that actually occurs makes sense. Doing nothing for a risk that does not happen is also sensible (or perhaps just lucky). However, some risk management we undertake will ultimately prove to be unnecessary and some risks we choose to accept may lead to disaster. As with any analysis, errors in risk assessment are of two types: "Type 1," (false positive) errors, and "Type 2," (false negative) errors. In the context of project risk management, Type 1 errors are the risks we choose to manage unnecessarily. Type 2 errors are the risks we ignore that then happen. Project managers must use qualitative and quantitative assessment techniques to rank order risks, and then work out responses to deal with the ones that warrant the effort. To improve the effectiveness of your efforts, you must carefully consider each identified project risk in terms of history and impact, and particularly in consideration with your tolerance for consequences.