Week 2 Project

More About Risk © 2016 South University More About Risk Senior level managers have the fiduciary responsibility to show the owners of the business an economic justification for any major investment. Moreover, a portfolio of only high-risk projects is usually a bad idea. The analysis of a potential project is always done in the context of total enterprise management. The relative standing of a project with regard to risks should be considered in the overall risk profile and strategy. Early, detailed, and accurate scoping of project activities will reveal many of the potential and inherent risks of a project's technical challenges. Remember, the scope of the project involves all the things that must be done, and also remember that all parts of the scope (deliverables), must be verified near the close out of the project. Verification can become a nightmare if the scope is poorly defined in the first place. Similarly, a major problem in many projects is scope creep. This is the tendency for change requests going beyond the original intent of the project to be submitted. Changes must be carefully monitored and controlled by a formal change request mechanism, and changes to the scope should be rare and only made when required. When it comes to being completed on time, the record of some kinds of projects is dismal. Since all projects are somewhat unique, many, if not most, are technically novel. This seems especially true of those projects seeking to make either incremental advancement to known technologies or "breakthroughs" to state-of-the-art technologies. Therefore, while some schedule extensions are almost inevitable when technical risk is high, they are manageable as "known unknowns" because the general type of problem is already well understood. A stakeholder management plan is advisable when many disparate stakeholders are involved. A formal communication plan is also required if there are important external stakeholders, such as investors and local communities. Senior management and stakeholders need to be made aware of risk scenarios as situations evolve.