Overview of Project Risk Management and
Related Services
The following
examples illustrate some of our project risk management capabilities for
industry and government:
We develop a risk management
process tailored to your project
·
Context: Your project
is new or is an existing one without a formalized risk management process.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We provide a world-class risk management
process tailored to your project that meets/exceeds your expectations. This process can be adapted by your
organization, and maintained by your personnel.
·
Structure: We work with
your senior project management, systems engineering and other person to tailor
the process to your needs, including, but not limited to the budget, schedule,
scope, organizational culture and structure, and contractual requirements in
place on your project. We develop a realistic, appropriate solution and
strongly believe that "one size does not fit all."
·
Experience: We have
successfully implemented risk management processes on a variety of projects,
including hardware-intensive, software-intensive, and mixed projects. This has included multiple cases where the
risk management approach was implemented across a variety of subsequent
projects by the organization.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We perform an independent
assessment or guide a team in evaluating your existing risk management process
·
Context: You or your
customers have questions/concerns about the efficacy of your risk management
process.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We perform an independent assessment of your
risk management or related process. Our
recommendations will be crafted in a manner to permit you to implement
recommended changes to insure lasting value long after the assessment is
completed.
·
Structure: We work with
your project personnel to develop a suitable evaluation plan, perform the
evaluation, document the results, and review them with your project team. This includes such things as the risk
management process steps and how well they are performed, evaluating the degree
of comprehensiveness of the existing process, and organizational and behavioral
aspects of how well it is implemented.
For example:
·
Little effort is
typically put into risk planning and developing a good Risk Management Plan,
yet without this it is common to find risk categories overlooked that
contribute to problems that surface later in the project.
·
Risk assessments often
use an incomplete risk identification methodology and a flawed risk analysis
methodology whose limitations are not well understood by project personnel.
·
Risk handling plans are
often developed in a somewhat unstructured manner and without considering the
range of candidate risk handling options (assumption, avoidance, control and
transfer), nor suitable strategies for each option.
·
Risk monitoring metrics
are typically implemented without consideration for obtaining data at the same
WBS element or activity level and the same snapshot in time to permit a
multi-dimensional evaluation of actual versus planned progress in implementing
risk handling plans.
·
Experience: We have
successfully performed independent reviews of risk management and related processes
(e.g., Cost as an Independent Variable) on a variety of projects. These reviews have led to process
improvements implemented by the host organization (e.g., restructured
organizational approach, revised risk analysis methodology).
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We help you define the best
level of risk management process sophistication for your project
·
Context: You are
considering enhancing your suite of risk management tools and techniques but
are unclear which ones to select and how to implement them.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We provide your project with a suitable set
of risk management tools and techniques that are competent and can be used by
project personnel without outside assistance.
·
Structure: We work with
your project personnel to develop a set of suitable tools and techniques for
risk identification, analysis, handling, and monitoring that can be implemented
and maintained by your project personnel.
·
Experience: We have
successfully implemented a variety of risk management tools and techniques on a
number of projects. This includes risk
identification, analysis, handling, and monitoring tools and techniques. Of greatest importance is that we select and
tailor the tools and techniques for your project and don’t force-fit an
answer that may not work for you. In
some cases we have successfully developed new tools (e.g., risk identification
approaches and risk scales) or adapted existing tools (e.g., checklists and
simulations) for a client. In other
cases we have recommended against the use of a particular tool because of
substantial limitations that could not be overcome and the possibility of
generating erroneous results (e.g., math performed on results from ordinal risk
scales and Monte Carlo simulations when substantial uncertainty existed that
could not be bounded). We have also
developed fresh approaches for examining risk identification techniques, risk
mapping matrices for converting risk scores to risk levels, risk handling
strategies, and risk monitoring approaches, and developed and performed several
hundred cost, performance, and schedule Monte Carlo simulations since the
1970s. We do not market risk management
tools, and thus do not have a biased perspective on process sophistication like
some consultants do who also use tools as a means of selling engineering
services.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We help you define a good
risk management organizational and behavioral implementation approach
·
Context: In order to
achieve effective risk management, both top-down support from the project
manager and bottom-up support from working level personnel are necessary. If
only one or the other occurs, the effectiveness will be diminished. In
addition, the organization structure you choose for implementing risk
management can impact its effectiveness. For example, what should the project
manager's role be, who should be the working level focal point for risk
management on the project, what should their reporting function be, what support
should this person have, how frequently should risk be evaluated on the
project, etc.?
·
Intended
results and benefits: We work with your project personnel to
develop a tailored risk management implementation approach that ranges from
organizational ownership of the risk management process to roles and
responsibilities of key project personnel and teams. This allows you to better implement risk management in a
resource-effective manner on your project and also transfer appropriate
portions of this approach to other projects within your organization.
·
Structure: We examine
the project's organizational structure and contractual requirements and work
with senior management to develop a tailored implementation approach and plan
for the project.
·
Experience: We have
successfully developed and implemented policy on several projects that define
the risk management organizational structure, ownership, and roles and
responsibilities. This has ranged from
mid-sized projects (e.g., ~ $20 Million life cycle) to large-scale projects
(> $1 Billion life cycle) as well as information contained in Risk
Management Plans in wide-scale use across organizations.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We provide a balance between
risk management process sophistication and organizational implementation policy
·
Context: You are
seeking guidance on how to enhance your risk management process. You notice that the existing process is
either not continuously used or only used by a fraction of project
personnel. The process itself may not
conform to available best practices and may include one or more steps that are
weak and/or unstructured.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We work with your project personnel to
identify risk management shortfalls and improve process effectiveness by
strengthening the process (as needed), and enhancing the project climate to
encourage participants to actively and continuously perform risk management.
·
Structure: We strongly
believe that the organizational and behavioral aspects of implementing risk
management is far more difficult than improving the level of technical
sophistication (which can often be accomplished in weeks). Assume that the
technical sophistication and organizational implementation both represent a
number from 0 to 1 and the product of these two values yields the overall level
of effectiveness. Consequently, you can have a virtually perfect process
technically, but if it is not well implemented, the overall effectiveness will
be very low. To the contrary, a process with "average" technical
sophistication but very well implemented may well yield an effective risk
management process. Given these considerations, we carefully develop a balance
between how sophisticated the process should be versus how extensively it is implemented
on the project.
·
Experience: We have
successfully balanced risk management process sophistication with
organizational implementation on several projects. These cases range from “green fields” where we developed and
implemented the process on a project that did not previously have a risk
management process to existing processes where we did/did not recommend
additional tools and techniques, recommended a shift in organizational process
ownership, and recommended changes in management roles and responsibilities to
enhance process implementation.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We evaluate risk management
process integration with other key project processes
·
Context: Your project has
a risk management process along with numerous other processes. You want to know how well integrated these
processes are with each other in order to better apply scarce resources.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We provide you with a clear understanding of
how well the risk management process in place on your project is integrated
with other related processes, and whether/not resources can be more efficiently
allocated across the project by adjusting the integration of the individual
processes. This can lead to reduced
resources needed to maintain the risk management process and better integration
with other project processes.
·
Structure: We evaluate
how well risk management is integrated with your other key project processes,
and provide specific recommendations for improving process integration as
warranted.
·
Experience: We have
evaluated risk management process integration on a variety of projects and
found that risk management functions are sometimes distributed to other project
processes, yet the necessary activities are not properly performed nor
coordinated, nor integrated with the risk management process. This can lead to an inefficient, if not
incorrect, picture of the heath and status of risk management both at the
project-level as well as for individual risks.
We recognize that risk management is not the “center of the universe,”
and help you improve overall process effectiveness regardless of the degree
that it is centralized/de-centralized.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We evaluate risk management
process integration across projects
·
Context: Your
organization has a wide variety of projects that include different risk
management processes. You want to know
how compatible are these processes with the organization’s best practices, with
each other, with customer needs, and whether/not the various implementations
are performed in a resource-effective manner across the organization.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We provide you with a clear understanding of
the risk management process in place on each project, how they align with your
best practices and customer requirements, and whether/not resources can be more
efficiently allocated across the organization by re-aligning the individual
processes. This can lead to reduced
resources needed to maintain the risk management process and greater process
compatibility across projects.
·
Structure: We help
develop, evaluate, and implement risk management processes across projects
within your organization. We help you strike a balance between having separate
processes for each project (which can waste resources and lead to ineffective
risk management on some projects), and blindly applying the same process to a
number of projects (which can also lead to ineffective risk management because
"one size does not fit all"). We work with senior management and
staff to identify minimum considerations for each project (tempered, of course,
by contractual requirements) and guidelines for adding additional features as
required contractually and warranted by the budget, scope, schedule, and other
considerations on the project.
·
Experience: We have
worked with upper management and project teams to evaluate risk management
processes across projects in large-scale organizations. This has led to a better understanding of
risk management process shortfalls not related to contractual requirements, and
how the process could be better implemented across the organization.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We assist in managing
moderate to high complexity projects
·
Context: A project
product or deliverable requires additional management attention; often because
the risk is about to manifest as a problem with substantial adverse impact to
the project.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We provide a variety of support from direct
project management (e.g., program office team lead) to staff functions (e.g.,
advisor to project manager) to assist management in resolving the potential
issues. In addition, we provide
accurate communication and documentation to evaluate project status, and
support management in developing “white papers” and other desired reporting.
·
Structure: We work with
your management to define suitable roles and responsibilities, then implement
the desired mission in a manner compatible with your policies and
organizational culture.
·
Experience: We have
extensive experience in managing key aspects of moderate to high complexity
(including troubled projects), and reporting to and briefing senior managers
and program managers. This includes roles with high-levels of visibility to
upper management and with long-term responsibility and accountability. The support has contributed to reduced risk,
and meeting cost, performance, and schedule objectives on key projects. For example, in one case we were asked to
provide project leadership when upper management determined that a hardware
component, which was also on the critical path, had an unanticipated
multi-month schedule slip. We worked on
a daily basis with team members from several organizations to structure and
implement a suitable integrated project management and risk management
approach, and focused resources on resolving technical issues. Upper management delegated signature authority
to me for funding non-recurring activities to bring the design to closure as
well as the design sell-off. (Major
unanticipated technical issues were also uncovered related to the inability of
the vendor to bring the component to a suitable design closure. A suitable design solution was identified by
other team members and folded-into the integrated management approach.) The component design was successfully
completed, the total program component buy was delivered, and production units
built without further concern regarding this item.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We provide direct project
support
·
Context: You need to
perform risk management on your project but to not have sufficient trained
personnel to conduct risk management and generate necessary products.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We perform risk management in a
resource-effective manner and provide near-term benefits as well as a
successful risk management “track record” that you can build upon for the
future.
·
Structure: We provide
direct support on a wide variety of projects. This includes the role of risk
manager, risk management consultant to the project manager or head of systems
engineering organization, etc. Activities performed include, but are not
limited to: evaluating the existing process and developing recommendations to
enhance its effectiveness, developing a new risk management process for a new
project, developing the Risk Management Plan, developing the risk analysis
methodology, conducting risk assessments, and advising the project's risk management
board.
·
Experience: We have
substantial experience in providing direct support to organizations where we
have performed risk management on a wide variety of projects. This includes working with project personnel
on all process steps, generating output to document and communicate results,
briefing project management (and at their discretion higher-level management),
and other activities requested by project management.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We provide on-site mentoring
of project personnel
·
Context: A candidate
risk manager has been identified that is inexperienced relative to the level of
complexity of the intended project.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We provide on-site mentoring of risk
managers and other key personnel to improve their skills, and provide follow-up
assistance during the course of the project. This can multiply risk management
effectiveness within your organization by developing a cadre of personnel with
good working knowledge and experience in risk management. These personnel can
become the next generation of mentors (perhaps with some outside assistance or
follow-up mentoring) who then train the next round of candidate risk managers
and risk management focal points within the organization. Using this approach,
the organization builds a group personnel that can effectively implement risk
management on your projects.
·
Structure: We examine
the project's organizational structure and contractual requirements and work
with senior management to develop a tailored implementation plan for the
project.
·
Experience: We have
successfully worked with and mentored several candidate project risk managers
to increase both their knowledge of risk management and how it was implemented
on the target project. This has
included side-by-side work on more than one project/more than one
organization. Project personnel we have
mentored have become risk managers and risk management focal points at
large-scale companies, and have authored risk management sections that assisted
their companies to win multi-billion dollar programs.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We help you prepare for
major project reviews
·
Context: You have a
major project review scheduled and need assistance in updating risk management
results, developing suitable documentation, and accurately communicating both
your status and future plans.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We work with management and project
personnel to provide high-quality results and documentation to support your
project reviews. This also provides a
template that can be used as a starting point for future project reviews, thus
reducing your resources for subsequent updates.
·
Structure: We perform an
independent assessment of your risk management process, results to date, and
how the message is portrayed to your customers. We work with management and project personnel to identify and
develop material needed for the review, and update the information as requested
by management personnel. We advise you
how to strengthen your presentation and documentation in each of these areas
and work with key project personnel to improve their level of knowledge. Should you desire, we will assist you in
responding to action items that result from reviews.
·
Experience: We have developed
risk-related documentation for numerous project reviews. This includes cases where the client asked
us to brief results to the customer.
The documentation provided has ranged from re-compiling existing
information to updating risk results to reflect current information for the
review.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We develop and evaluate risk
management documentation
·
Context: Your risk
management documentation does not provide management with sufficient visibility
into the nature of why an item is a risk, what the rationale is for analyzing
and assigning a level to the risk, a plan to reduce the risk to an acceptable
level, and/or changes in risk level vs time.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We develop risk management documentation
that is conducive for long-term use—striking a balance between too simplistic
and overly burdensome. This
documentation (or enhancements made to your documentation) are tailored to your
needs, contractual requirements, can subsequently be modified as desired, and
used on your other projects.
·
Structure: We examine
existing documentation where available and recommend resource-effective
enhancements. Insufficient
documentation often results in a poor and/or subjective of risk results which
can translate into missed risk categories for a given issue, inaccurate risk
analysis results, a poorly implemented risk handling plan, and insufficient
information as to why risks have changed during the course of a project. On the other hand, excessive documentation
will often preclude its use and can lead to diminished enthusiasm to perform
risk management on the project. We
strike a balance between these undesirable extremes to identify documentation
that is both sufficient for present and future needs, and resource effective as
well.
·
Experience: We have
extensive experience in both developing and evaluating risk management
documentation on a variety of programs, including contractual deliverables, the
project's Risk Management Plan (RMP), plus supporting documentation and forms
for risk identification, risk analysis, risk handling, and risk
monitoring. For example, the RMP
written for one project was circulated by the organization’s executives to
numerous customers. In each case the customer reportedly responded that the
document was "exactly" the RMP that they wanted, and the risk
management process described within the document was also their process of
choice. This RMP became the template
for all projects within the organization.
In another case, the RMP written for the customer during a proposal was
used as a template for all RMPs subsequently developed within the
organization. We also have experience
in balancing the amount of information needed for reporting against the
allocation of project personnel and other resources to provide, maintain, and
evaluate the information.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
We develop RFPs and
proposals
·
Context: You desire to write
risk management language for an RFP or need help writing a winning risk
management proposal section.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We work with your project personnel to
provide high-quality language that can be inserted into an RFP or winning text
that can be integrated into your proposal.
·
Structure: We work with
project personnel to develop suitable risk management language for buyer RFPs
and seller proposals tailored to your needs; contractual limitations; project
acquisition phase; project budget, scope, schedule, etc.
·
Experience: We are the
primary author of the Air Force Risk Management Critical Process Assessment
Tool (Version 2.0) that includes extensive risk management sample RFP language
for the Statement of Objectives, Proposal Preparation Instructions for Section
L, and Evaluation Factors for Award (Section M). We have also made major contributions to numerous industry
proposals, and have had primary responsibility for risk management in several winning
proposals with a contract and option dollar value far exceeding $10 Billion.
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
·
Context: You desire
on-site training for risk management and related topics.
·
Intended
results and benefits: We train project and other desired personnel
and provide them with “hands on” knowledge of the risk management process and
its implementation. This permits them
to contribute to your risk management activities in both the near-term as well
as longer time-frames.
·
Structure: Our training
is tailored to your needs and can be focused as required (e.g., to the level of
existing knowledge of personnel, the project acquisition phase, and project
type). Training ranges from one hour overviews; to half day intensive executive
and senior engineering reviews; to one, two, and three day intensive
courses. A sample brochure for our two
and three day courses is available on-line by visiting the risk management
training link on this site here, Example risk
management course outline, or through the site roadmap at the bottom of
the web page:
·
Experience: We have
successfully performed on-site/in-house risk management training from the
project level to the major corporate level to a number of organizations. What sets our training apart from most
others is that we have considerable experience making risk management work on
actual projects. Believe it or not,
this is far different than the vast majority of risk management trainers who
have never extensively performed risk management on an actual project. If the trainer has performed risk
management, it typically has been narrowly focused on minor aspects of the
process (e.g., quantitative risk analysis), or the trainer has had little/no
long-term responsibility and accountability to make risk management work on the
project. As a project manager I know
(who is also a medical doctor and one who holds a Ph.D. in electrical
engineering) said: “you wouldn’t allow
yourself to have surgery from someone who only read about it in a book, you’d
want a qualified resident with considerable real-world experience.” Similarly, why should you obtain risk
management training from someone without extensive real-world implementation
experience?
·
Contact: Please call
us for additional information.
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Links to Project Risk Management Services |
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Overview of Services |
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Second Edition of Dr. Conrow's Risk Management Book with Reviews |
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Risk Management e-Interview with International Council on Systems Engineering |
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Links to Other Services |
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|
Dr. Edmund H. Conrow, CMC, CPCM, CRM, PMP |
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is Copyright © 2000-2007 by Edmund H. Conrow, All Rights Reserved
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