#386 – THE TWO TYPES OF AGILITY YOU NEED – HOWARD WIENER

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If your business is going to survive, you must be able to read and react to changes in your markets and continuously improve your competitive position.  It’s more important now than it’s ever been.

SWOT is a model often employed to characterize a company’s competitive position in terms of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.  If a competitor creates a new offering that you can’t match, that’s a weakness.  If you have one that they can’t match, it’s a strength.  Continue reading

#386 – ARE YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR RISK – ANNETTE DAVISON PH.D.

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According to the definition in ISO 31000, risk is the impact of uncertainty on [achieving] your objectives. Of course, this impact can be both negative or positive. ISO 31000 states the following:

“Clause 6.4.2 Risk identification: The organisation should identify risks, whether or not their sources are under its control.

Clause 6.4.3 Risk analysis: The effectiveness of existing Continue reading

#385 – TYPE OF CONTRACT YOU BID ON EFFECTS YOUR RISK – JOHN AYERS

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There are two basic types of contracts applied to development projects. They are Firm Fixed Price (FFP) and Cost-Plus (CP). Each type has a number of different variations shown in Table 1. FFP contracts are for projects with mature technology, less uncertainty, and more predictability. CP contracts are for projects with new technology, a lot of uncertainty, and less predicability. There are other types of contracts but are out of scope for this paper. Continue reading

#385 – REPUTATIONAL RISK IS NOT A RISK – ALEX SIDORENKO

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Despite the clickbait title, the messages are in the article are important to the risk profession and are purely practical. First few caveats, corporate reputation is important, even a perception of wrongdoings can affect funding, sales and cost of doing business.  Importance of reputations for both profits and non-profits is not up for a debate. Second caveat is that reputational risk in this article is just an illustration, the same underlying principles apply to all other “marketing” risks like ESG, geopolitical and whatever bs consultants will come up with next. Continue reading

#385 – PROJECT TRUST, RESPECT, & TOXICITY: IMPOSSIBLE MENAGE A TROIS? – MALCOLM PEART

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People!  People in positions of authority wish for popularity, they may demand respect in one way or another but, above all, being trusted is perhaps the most desirable.  Trust, they say, needs to be won, respect is awaited expectantly but not necessarily given enjoyably, and popularity is fleeting.  In the absence of trust and respect, and despite any feelings of friendship or congeniality, toxic environments can prevail even though their obnoxiousness is well known as is the souring effect on human relationships. Continue reading