BUSI 415 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Risk Management Assignment _2024.pdf

Risk Management Assignment

Brian Wade

Liberty University

BUSI 415

Introduction

For my paper, I am going to discuss the Knowledge Area of Risk Management. Risk management

deals with the ability to identify risks and develop a strategy to prevent or lessen their effects on a

project (Project Mangement Skills, 2020). A project manager needs to be able to identify what risks are

present for a project and how to mitigate or minimize them. In my paper I will review all the phases of

involved with risk management for a project to be successful, which are, plan risk management, identify

risks, perform qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, plan and implement risk responses, and monitor

risks (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). Each phase has different inputs, tools and techniques, and

outputs that are needed to make it them run as effectively as possible. We will cover what each phase is

and how to effectively incorporate the steps to make them successful in minimizing the effects of

negative risks on a project.

Risk management is part of our everyday life and we implement risk mitigation without even

thinking about it. This includes putting on our seatbelts in the car, looking both ways when crossing a

road or cleaning up water on the floor, so someone won’t trip. We are ingrained to think about risks

from the day we were born as there is always uncertainty in everyday life. A project risk management

Sixth Edition, 2017). A project manager needs to be aware of the risks associated with a project and

Plan Risk Management

stakeholders (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). The inputs for this phase include project charter,

the ground.

The tools and techniques for this phase include expert judgment, data analysis and meetings

(PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). The project manager needs to be able to use their expert judgement

tailor the risk management for the project. Considerations for tailoring risk can be dependent on the

size, complexity, importance of the project (Project Mangement Skills, 2020). The size and complexity of

a project are two important factors that can determine the types of risk that a project manager is willing

to take on. For me, we must determine the number of people and equipment available to complete a

project. Are these people skilled enough to drive the equipment or do they need to be trained more?

These are all deciding factors that the project manager would use their expert judgement to decide the

risks of the project.

The outputs for this phase are a completed risk management plan (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition,

2017). When the inputs, tools and techniques are put together and completed, you get the finished

product of the risk management plan. This plan describes how risk management activities will be

categories (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). One important part of this plan is the probability

worksheet or risk matrix. This worksheet weighs the severity and probability of an event and rates them

process group. It is the process of identifying individual and overall project risks and documenting the

characteristics of these risks (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). Critical thinking is an important skill to

have for this phase. The project manager needs to use their expert judgment and play devils advocate

for the project and decide if anything can do wrong (Project Mangement Skills, 2020). The inputs for this

phase include project management plan, project documents, agreements, and procurement

documentation (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). Out of these inputs, the project management plan is

the most important. Without the project management plan, there wouldn’t be a plan and most

importantly it shows that there has approval for the project.

The tools and techniques for this phase include expert judgement, data gathering and analysis,

and interpersonal and team skills (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). Expert judgement is a trait that is

identifying potential risks and without this data, there would not be proof of the risks. The outputs for

2017). The outputs are the promised items that have been completed from the inputs, tools and

techniques. The risk register is an important document for this stage because it contains the extensive

occurrence and the impact that it has on the project and then putting the data into a numerical value

(Harrin, 2020). The inputs for both of these phases include project management plan, project

documents, enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets (PMBOK Guide Sixth

Edition, 2017). This is the same for other phases as without these documents the project would not be

approved. The tools and techniques for both phases include expert judgement, data gathering and

analysis, risk categorization, and data representation (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). These tools

and techniques are individualized and can be used in gathering the information needed for the risk

analysis. The outputs for the qualitative phase are project document updates which include an

assumption and issue log, risk register, and a risk report while the quantitative phase emphasizes the

importance of updating project documents (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). These outputs are the

hard work completed from the other phases. The documents are constantly being updated throughout

the entire project. Risks that were noted at the beginning of the project may not be the same towards

the end of it and vise versa. The importance of these stages is that it creates a list of all risks associated

happening. It is important to note that one phase is for listing risks associated with a project

(qualitative), while the other phase is more worried about the numerical data associated with these risks

organizational process assets (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). These are all documents that have

been created in prior processes however, they are beneficial for the risk response plan because they

determined what risks could be present for this project. The tools and techniques for this phase include

expert judgement, data gathering and analysis, interpersonal and team skills, strategies for threats,

opportunities, and overall project risk (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). These tools and techniques

are important and rely on each other to be successful. It is up to the project manager an team to use

their expert judgement to figure out what type of processes they want to use to gather data. The

outputs for this phase include change requests, project management plan updates, and project

document updates (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). These documents are always changing and are

contingent on the forward progression of a project. Risks of a project will always be different and needs

to be responded to in the proper way (Tworek, 2012). One important thing about these outputs is a

change request, which is a formal request to modify a part of the project. Without change, a risk will

continue to cause issues during a project. This change request helps to alleviate unforeseen risks and fix

The sixth part of the Risk Management KA is to implement a risk response and is part of the

Executing Process Group. This process is fully contingent upon an event that requires a risk response and

The tools and techniques for this phase include expert judgement, interpersonal and team

skills, and project management information systems (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). As with other

phases, these rely on expert judgement however one important part of this phase is the implementation

of an information systems or software to schedule, keep track of resources and costs associated with the

project. The outputs for this phase include change requests and project documents updates (PMBOK

Guide Sixth Edition, 2017). Making sure that these documents are up to date is just as important as

completing them because it shows the progression of the project as well as changes made throughout.

Since implementation of the risk response is part of the executing process group, the main objective of

phase is to complete the work that was define is the planning portion of the risk response. This is where

inputs for this phase include project management plan, project documents, work performance data and

every phase, an important one for this phase would be a risk audit. This audit tells the effectiveness of

all the risk responses that have been implemented and can be presented during weekly meetings.

The outputs for this phase include work performance information, change requests, project

management plan and documents updates, and organizational process assets updates. Through

thorough completion of all phases of the knowledge area, we would hope for the best possible

outcomes and implementation of all data that has been gathered thus far (Kujawski & Angelis, 2009).

Successful implementation means that risks have been reduced as much as possible. The main goal of

this phase is that is enables decisions to be made based on current information about the overall and

individual risks associated with the project (PMBOK Guide Sixth Edition, 2017).

For risk management, there needs to be an ability for the project to learn and adapt to its

surroundings. This comes with time and patience as one learns common risks associated with different

tasks through trial and error. An agile approach tends to be flexible and more effective with projects and

even though a risk management plan tries to identify what those risks are there needs to be some

throughout the entire project while a traditional approach looks for risk in the initiating and planning

stages.

comes to mind is Nehemiah and him rebuilding the wall. Through past experiences Nehemiah knew how

of attack.

Throughout this paper I have discussed the phases related to risk management, which is