Week 7 Seminar – Practical Risk Management, Part 1 Identify risks in your current project This week ask your internship supervisor to help you identify a project that you will be working on (or that you are already working on) and from which you can enter the following information into the Project Context section of the RMP (Risk management Plan) template: 1. Plan Prepared by (enter your name here) 2. Organisation (the name of your internship company) 3. Date 4. Supervisor (you should put your supervisor’s name here) 5. Project Name 6. Project Description 7. Project Deliverables (e.g. “New website”, “Phone app”, PC’s Imaged”, “System tested”) 8. Business benefit i.e. what will the company gain from this project? 9. People (who will be working on this, including yourself?) 10. Equipment 11. Budget (you can enter “TBA”, which means To Be Advised, if you don’t know) 12. Start (expected start date) 13. End (expected end date) In a commercial project most of this information will come from the scope statement. Once you have done this, during the course of this week you will complete the Project Context section, then identify and analyse the main risks. Next week, the last week of Risk Management, you will complete the final section of your plan which we call the “Risk Treatment Plan” Revise your Risk Management notes Revise last week’s seminar, “Introduction to Risk Management”, and from the resource, “Risk Management Guide for Small Business”. This week we start investigating how to complete a “standards based” RMP (Risk Management Plan and you will use as your primary resources the PE Risk Management Plan Template from last week, and again, the Risk Management Guide for Small Business. The template is split into three parts Work to be completed this week • Part 1: Project Context • Part 2: Risk Register Work to be completed next week • Part 3: Risk Treatment Plan Part 1: Project Context (To be completed this week) The section gives us an overview of the project and the environment in which it will be managed. Additionally it indicates why the project is needed, what it will deliver, and how this will benefit the company. The fields include: Plan prepared by In this case it will be your name of course, but it would normally be the name of the Project Manager. Project Sponsor “A sponsor is the person or group who provides resources and support for the project and is accountable for enabling success. The sponsor may be external or internal to the project manager’s organization. From initial conception through project closure, the sponsor promotes the project. This includes serving as spokesperson to higher levels of management to gather support throughout the organization and promoting the benefits the project brings. The sponsor leads the project through the initiating processes until formally authorized, and plays a significant role in the development of the initial scope and charter. For issues that are beyond the control of the project manager, the sponsor serves as an escalation path. The sponsor may also be involved in other important issues such as authorizing changes in scope, phase-end reviews, and go/no-go decisions when risks are particularly high. The sponsor also ensures a smooth transfer of the project’s deliverables into the business of the requesting organization after project closure.” (PMBOK guide, Fifth Edition, p123). Project Name what's in a name? This is a short name to make it easy to reference the project, e.g. “Windows 12 Upgrade”. In many organisations, a register of projects is maintained by the Project Management Office, and they issue “names” (often containing numbers, e.g. XY-789-01) for the Project Managers to use. Project description This will be one or two sentences, e.g. “Upgrade all desktop computers to MS Windows 12” Problem it is seeking to solve This can be a problem to solve (a threat) or a benefit to pursue (an opportunity). E.g. “We need to implement a new ERP system, but it will run only on Windows 12, so all our computers need to be upgraded to Win 12” Project Deliverables The products, services or results that the project will deliver. E.g.. “Computers upgraded to Windows 12, support manuals updated, staff trained in Win 12” Business Benefit i.e. what will the company gain from this project? The key phrase in this sentence is “business benefit”. In our example, upgrading to Windows 12 is not a business benefit; it is simply an “enabler”. In this case the business benefit could be, “The company will be able to use the new ERP system, to increase efficiency”. Resources to be applied What will it take to produce these deliverables? • People who will work on this project, including yourself (names and/or positions are acceptable) e.g. PM (Project Manager), software analyst, 2 programmers, tester, etc • Budget: approximate amount of money allocated specifically for this project • Equipment: if it must be obtained especially for this project • Estimated Project Duration: the expected start and end dates Part 2: Risk Register (To be completed this week) There are three main steps to creating a Risk Management plan 1. Identify the risks 2. Analyse the risks, and 3. Treat the risks Important note: In last week’s lesson you learned that risk analysis occurs at two levels: 1. Qualitative Risk Analysis This is the first step. It is a subjective analysis, and usually employs words, such as “low”, “medium” and “high” rather than numbers (but simple number can be used, e.g. 0 to 5, to keep engineers happy). 2. Quantitative Risk Analysis When you have completed your qualitative analysis, the more important risks may be subjected to quantitative analysis (more precise numbers, data ranges, and historical information) For PE you will carry out Qualitative Risk Analysis only You will notice in the note above for Quantitative Analysis, it says “ important risks may be subjected to quantitative analysis ”. According to the PMBOK guide, it might not always be necessary to Perform Quantitative Risk Analysis and it’s up to the project manager to decide if it can be justified on the project. (PMBOK guide, Fifth Edition, p335). So, for this week 1. Read pages 28 to 38 of the Risk management Guide for Small Business 2. Revise last week’s Risk Management seminar 3. Now complete this week’s questions, using the Risk Management Plan template that you started last week.