#16 – BUILDING A RISK INVENTORY TO PREPARE FOR MANAGING PROJECT RISKS – HOWARD WIENER

Howard Wiener PixIn the first two posts (Managing Project Risk the PMI Way and Building a Risk Inventory To Manage Project Risks) in this thread we looked at two classes of project uncertainties—‘macro’ uncertainties, whose impacts are felt at the project level, and ‘micro’ uncertainties, whose impact is discernible at the level of individual Work Packages.  Given the PMI project management lifecycle, these uncertainties become concrete and must be dealt with at two different points.  ‘Macro’ uncertainties must be dealt with, or at least must begin to be dealt with, with during the Initiation process group.  In fact, many of these uncertainties must be identified and management of them started before Initiation even begins.  ‘Micro’ uncertainties can only be identified and materialized fully as activities in Planning are occurring.  Continue reading

#15 – BUILDING A RISK INVENTORY TO MANAGE PROJECT RISKS – HOWARD WIENER

Howard Wiener PixIn the previous post (Managing Project Risk the PMI Way) we looked at some approaches to identifying uncertainties during the Initiation process group.  During Initiation, the project is dealt with more as a whole than at the level of the individual activities required to implement it.  In the Plan process group, which follows Initiation, the project is decomposed into a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)—the individual sets of tasks that will produce components of the product that is the goal of the project.  Continue reading

#14 – MANAGING PROJECT RISK THE PMI WAY- HOWARD WIENER

Howard Wiener Pix

 Much has been written about the use of the terms “risks” and “opportunities” with respect to the process that PMI refers to as “Manage Risk.”  A recent thread on the subject of the terms on LinkedIn has drawn over 100 responses debating their meaning and usage, dissecting them in detail and resolving little.  For the purposes of this post, let’s agree to refer to outcomes of planned project activities as uncertainties.

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