TABLE OF CONTENTS Project-risk management seeks to manage and control the risk of project success to an acceptable level. Project risk deals with the risk to project success in terms of scope, cost, and schedule, including customer satisfaction. Other processes deal with other risks, such as health and safety risks or environmental risk. Project-risk management seeks to control project risks beyond the scope of your project plan and beyond your circle of control.
Project-risk management is part of the project-planning process because you must decide on the course of action to include in your project plan based on the relative risk. Whenever you make a project assumption, you are making a project-risk decision because you are assuming reality in the future will follow your assumption. If your assumption does not come true, you have a project-risk event.
The PMBOK Guide [1] suggests that risk management can include opportunities as well as negative consequences. If your project environment has significant upside potentials that you are unable to include in the project baseline and there may be benefit to addressing them (e.g., you might be able to influence the probability or consequence), you may wish to use the following process for the upside consequences as well. If you choose to do so, I recommend using a separate table for positive risks. Please make the mental changes to what follows if you are considering positive risks.
Project managers have several options to deal with project-risk events, including
Spending effort to prevent the occurrence of the...
