Discussion post Project Management - Risk

Project risk management deals with identifying, assessing, and responding to risk in the best interest of the project and its objectives. This part of project management is often overlooked since it can be a little time consuming and not directly related to the project. It can help improve the overall project success because we have evaluated those items that could cause the project to fail.

Managing Cost

Cost Management deals with four major areas: planning, estimating, budgeting, and control.

· Resource planning: this is what we do to determine the resources available and the quantities of this resource that we should allocate and where in the project.

· Cost estimating: Based on the resources needed for the project, we create an estimate of the cost.

· Cost budgeting: Following the estimate, we allocate the overall cost estimates to specific task groupings for the project.

· Cost control: Controlling deals with ensuring the project remains within budget and making adjustments to the budget and allocations as necessary. The most important part is to remain flexible yet true to the original budget.

Managing Resources

There are other resources in addition to finances. For instance, we have to maintain human recourse available to conduct the project's tasks. We have to plan and allocate human resources to the various tasks including team development and management. In general, there are two main principles to follow when managing any resource (human or otherwise).

· Resource loading: this refers to the total amount of resources needed in the project during a period of time.

Resource leveling: in the event of conflicts, we would use this method to create a smoother distribution of the resources.