Projects fail at an astonishing rate — why do they?
Oh, that’s simple. Risk assessments are not performed in some organizations because they are perceived as a waste of valuable project time. This is why projects fail.
At one level, the project manager is responsible for identifying, assessing, and managing the individual risks that are recorded in the risk register. The project management role is primarily responsible for overall project risk. So, how can a project manager assess today’s risks so that they won’t become tomorrow’s problems?
As a project manager, it is important to determine how a risk assessment will fit within your risk management processes and eventual risk management plan.
Risk Identification is the process when potential risks elements are determined. During this process, Taxonomy-Based Risk Management is used and it involves a checklist of risk grouping structured according to different classes.
Yes, there’s a taxonomy of risks. Here’s an example.
I was amazed to find out the complexity of this process. The Taxonomy-based questionnaire (TBQ) is a set of questions organized according to the taxonomy, or division into ordered groups or categories, of project development for the purpose of identifying risks by interviewing a group of one or more individuals (TBQ Interviews).
The risk analysis involves the use of a questionnaire consisting of twenty sets of questions, each of which corresponds to a risk type/category. Initially users are asked to prioritize the risk types according to their importance and then answer a series of questions by selecting the type from the suggested answers. Based on the users’ choices, the manager extracts the probability of each risk occurring as well as its impact.
This method is used to:
- Identify relationships of project development and identify risks based on those relationships.
- Re-assess the risk condition of the project.
- Foster risk awareness and user motivation and involvement.
I found this great article on developing your custom taxonomy-based questionnaire template:
The following article contains well-documented lists of common risk factors:
