Risk Identification

1. Risk Identification Lecture 4

2. Meaning of Risk Identification • What is commonly understood as risk identification has two aspects. • Firstly we have to pick up risks by locating them where they are hidden. • Secondly to recognize the risks, name them, & assign attributes. • Sometimes we see risks but they are masked and escape, • At other times we see risks but they are amorphous.

3. Meaning of Risk Identification • One reason for difficulty is “Myopia”, Our vision is narrow and limited. • In risks identification, we need to see all the avenues, search all processes & consider all factors. Risk Myopia

4. Meaning of Risk Identification Definition: “Risk identification is a process of searching the environment, detecting risks, recognizing their attributes and estimating their consequences”

5. Meaning of Risk Identification • Risks identification results in creation of validated risk list. • The risk identifier tries to give minimum set of risk information, can find more attributes late, for risks analysis. • Well conducted risk identification involves preliminary analysis and add much more value to risk data.

6. Risk Identification Methods There are two types of risk identification methods: • Type I: • A generic, open-ended method. It search in internal & external environment, goes beyond the project and cover the health of entire business. • Type II: • Search for risk within a tightly held context and focuses on risks related to delivery. It’s a formal method.

7. Risk Identification Methods Type (I) Risks: • It includes Intuitive methods, are necessary to discovery risks unknown up to now. • Other is History-based methods, put known risk taxonomies & lists to fresh use now.

8. Type (I) Risks: Intuitive Methods: • Mind Mapping, • Brainstorming • Out-of-the box thinking • Analogy History-Based Methods: • Top ten risks • Risk Check list • Taxonomy-based Questionnaire

9. Type (I): Intuitive Methods • Mind Mapping: • At center of risk discovery, we have the mind-mapping process. • Mind recognizes risks symptoms by mapping familiar symptoms to future troubles. • Sometime is based on lessons learned or sometimes its innovative. • How mind creates a map? is beyond conventional logical methods. • All be sure is that the enquiring minds finds relations, should they exists?

10. Type (I): Intuitive Methods • For e.g. PM looks at SRS detects certain kinds of language errors, and suspects that the project may end up in trouble. • He “Maps” linguistic problems to project delays.

11. Type (I): Intuitive Methods • Brainstorming: • Group thinking, with cross fertilization of ideas, aided with creativity & mind mapping. • Is most useful in identifying unknown and hidden risks. • Teams have found more risks than those found by any individual. • The brainstorming sessions can start with well-defined subject & plan to identify risks. • All planning documents and standards provide valuable help to a team so as not to miss the details & yet stay focused.

12. Type (I): Intuitive Methods • Out-of-the-box thinking: • We can see risks, better if we stand out of the box and take an external & holistic perspective of the situation. • The risk identifier must learn to look from new perspectives. • Thinking in terms of alternatives requires creative ability and breaking away from habits and rituals

13. Type (I): Intuitive Methods • Analogy: • Experienced people, managed several projects, develop sensitive skills to detect risk. • The known risks are logged somewhere in their brains, all they have to allow mapping between new situation & corresponding situation in the past. • If the two process, familiar and the new, are analogous, risk types may repeat. • An advantage that we can also reuse, risk identification methods, their symptoms may be similar.

14. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Top Ten Risks • Risk List published by authors & researchers can play a major supportive role in risk identification. • So this can be use as cross-reference document. • Most of the significant risks, can be identified by reviewing the project, from the perspective of published risk lists: • Caper Jones’s software risks • Rex Black’s quality risks • SEI’s risk taxonomy • Popular top ten risks

15. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Caper Jones’s software risks: • Approaches risk management like diseases, presents a set of risks, or symptoms as medical practitioners identify health risks. • Here is a selection of risk from his list:

16. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Caper Jones’s software risks: • Jones opened new lines of thinking, by proposing certain sensitive risks. • For example: • Caper presenting “software metrics” as major risk in project. As many things go wrong by measuring the wrong factors & missing the right ones. • They include insufficiency, excesses, and inaccuracies. • His list is quite comprehensive , cross-checking your project against this list, could be life-saver.

17. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Rex Black’s risk list: • Rex Black records a set of failures as “quality risks”.

18. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Rex Black’s risk list: • These are quality attributes of product, & play a role in managing the product quality. • They are also known as “failure modes” according to FMEA(failure mode effects analysis) practice. • And become key points for reliability analysis and preventive actions

19. Type (I): History-Based Methods • SEI’s Risk lists: • List published by SEI, under the name of risk taxonomy, is very useful tool for risk identification. • It cover three categories of risk, • Product Engineering Risk, • Development Environment Risk, • An Program Constraint Risk

20. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Popular top ten risk: • Risk identified by researchers can be used by project teams to see same risks are present in their own projects. • Risks may not be present in the same form but may be in some other form.

21. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Risk Checklist: • Organization’s collective experience in risk identification is used to design the risk checklists. • The checklist is prepared with symptoms, clues or simply names of known risks. • It is used as a guide to look for risks, having special risk checklist for each phase and process.

22. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Taxonomy-Based Questionnaire: • SEI proposes a taxonomy based questionnaire (TBQ) as a formal & structured way of identifying risks, • SEI claims this methods as effective & efficient, because feedback from all participants. • It appeared that all known and communicated project risks were float up.

23. Type (I): History-Based Methods • Taxonomy-Based Questionnaire: • Risks are viewed through windows of known risk type, making identification of risks faster & more economical. • The risk identifier can make sure he has not missed known areas. TBQ is a process of guided inquiry.