Anticlue

Risk Mitigation and Projects

In the software applications services industry you really have two types of activities operational maintenance and projects. Operational maintenance deals with the daily activities necessary to support the main business functions. Projects are the mechanism to align IT objectives with the strategic goals of the organization. All projects have a definite beginning and ending. While one is in the mist of a project issues crop up, these are normally reactive actions to a problem at hand. But let’s look at things a little more globally, your project may be effected by outside influence at some point down the road. The proactive identification of possible problems is normally known as a risk management.

Within your project having a standardized process to obtain, classify, and possibly mitigate risks is well worth your time. Just the identification is essential, it shows forethought for an item that has been considered. Once a risk is identified the strategy of handling it is determined. A risk can be accepted as is with no further mitigation attempts, otherwise it can be mitigated with one or several strategies. After the procedure to handle risks is established, a process to review the risk listing monthly, identify the owner of the risk and who is responsible for mitigating or monitoring it. This enables the risk listing to be communicated and it is clearly defined who to speak with if you are concerned about a risk on the list. Proactively handling risk will minimize the level of issues you need to reactively handle, and the approach will possibly have less of an impact on the project – just a thought.