Assessing and managing risks & opportunities is a serious topic that must be well managed to accomplish project objectives and maximizing business benefits.
Risks and opportunities are uncertainty that matters, uncertainty that can affect our objectives.
The main difference between risks and opportunities is the sign of the impact on our project (positive or negative).
When we identify things that might go wrong (things with negative impact), we identify them as “risks”.
When we identify things that might go well as well as help us (things with positive impact), we identify them as “opportunities”.
The process to handle Risks & Opportunities is similar and consists of several steps:
- Risk & Opportunities Identification
In this step, as Project Managers, we ask ourselves what can affect the project.
What are the future events, which if they occur, will help or hinder us as we try to achieve our goals, and we identify them as risks or as opportunities? - Risk & Opportunities Assessment / Evaluation / Analysis
In the second step, we should ask: which of these risks and opportunities that might affect our project, are the most important ones?
Then we prioritize them into two key dimensions:
- How likely is it to happen?
- And if it did happen, what effect could it have on our goals?
3. Risk & Opportunities Responses
In the next step, we ask ourselves, what shall we do about it?
Now that we know what are the key risks and opportunities, we can shape some responses.
For bad risks, we could try to avoid, minimize or control them and protect ourselves.
For opportunities, we could try to maximize the chances that they will happen, or to position ourselves to be better able to exploit them or use them if they happen.
Then of course, we must do what we said we do.
4. Risk & Opportunities Tracking
Projects are constantly changing. They are dynamic. Therefore, Risk Management is a continuous process of identifying, analyzing and responding to risks & opportunities factors throughout the life of a project and in the best interests of its objectives.
In this step we must ask ourselves, if what we did work. And we need to make sure we're re-examining existing risks and opportunities, as well as identifying new ones that have occurred since the last time we checked, since the last time we took action.
In ENOVIA, the Risk Manager role allows you to manage the full continuous process of identifying, analyzing, responding and tracking the risks & opportunities factors, throughout the life of a project and in the best interests of its objectives.
Risk Manager Role consists of two applications:
- Risk Management widget
- Opportunities Management widget
The following videos illustrate the ‘Risk Management’ app & 'Opportunity Management' app in more detail:
Risk Management :
Opportunities Management:
