Risk Management for High Risk Projects
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Presented by:
Thomas Delaney, PMP, IBM Corp.
Risk management is a basic part of every project, but how do you manage risk on "nested" (projects within projects) or high risk projects? High risk requires that you manage not only the project risks but the stakeholders. Basic risk management techniques can be utilized to effectively track and manage high risk and capitalizing on that technique, you can manage the stakeholders and eliminate new and stakeholder imposed risk later in the project.
This becomes especially important in technology projects were invention is required and the desire to press on to completion of advanced components often competes with the need to complete on a specified schedule. The ability to understand the technical risks and options for resolution in advance of the risk event allows decision making to occur before the risk impacts the project, when stakeholders are more likely to think in a logical manner.
This simple technique becomes an effective, easy to understand methodology to keep the project on track. Today's tip for on time deployment of advanced technology projects: "The enemy of good is better." It can always be better but that means you will never finish.
Thomas is an IBM Certified Executive Project Manager and PMP currently responsible for development and deployment of supply chain integration and demand supply optimization solutions for IBM. In the past 26 years, he has been employed in various positions in manufacturing, industrial engineering, marketing, product development, and has been a project manager for over 10 years. He has been responsible for project management of over $½ billion in spending including delivery of ASCI White, the most powerful computer on the planet in 1999 & 2000 (now ranked #4). Thomas holds a BSEE from UMass Dartmouth (formerly SMU) and a Masters Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University. He is also President of the Samoyed Club of America, Inc.