Managing Elephants in Rooms
on May 17 in Blog, Priority, Understanding tagged Analysis, Planning, Prioritisation by KeithRisk For The Rest Of Us - Managing Elephants in Rooms
Risk Management is a huge area with lots of specialist people, companies, books, qualifications and so on. So should we even go there if we’re not black belts…? And what’s this about elephants?
My own opinion is that even for us “non-experts”, giving risks just a bit more priority in planning, projects and management has a big positive impact on delivering results.
One thing that we tend to do at CAL for the majority of our projects is maintain a risks and issues log. This was born of our PRINCE2 experience (and the need for something lighter than full PRINCE for the majority of our projects).
At its simplest, a risk log is just a list of the things that could go or have gone wrong, which you review regularly (the last bit being the important thing!).
Anything you add to the list is really just helping you rank or prioritise risks, quantify them, or plan to mitigate (avoid) or manage (contain) them.
An honest discussion with key people at the start of a project, large or small, will usually turn up some concerns that people have - things that could stop success from being achieved.
So, You Mentioned An Elephant…?
In these meetings and discussions, it is not uncommon for “the elephant in the room” to make itself known too, and perhaps this is why people don’t like doing even basic formal risk management. Somehow it doesn’t feel right to be worrying about all the things that could go wrong when really, it’s the time to get everyone fired up. Especially the elephants - the big things that we all know are potential problems, but no-one likes to admit or bring up in meetings…
However, done correctly, I think risk logs are very positive - they give the team a sense that “we have a plan for anything we might face”. They identify early on the things we need to watch out for, and if we can mitigate or avoid a risk, we even save ourselves the pain and effort of having to manage the fallout. That’s why I use mitigate and manage as two separate terms by the way - almost “before and after”, or the difference between “risk” (hey, it might happen) and “issue” (oops, it has happened).
The last point was succinctly put to me by a client - “if you can smell it, it’s a risk; if you’re standing in it, it’s an issue…” Erm, back to elephants perhaps…
The last thing I usually put in a risk/issue log is a list of the assumptions we make to keep a project moving along. My view here is that an assumption is a risk until it is a fact or not - maybe “latent risk” is a descriptive way of putting it.
A Risk Log Is A Form Of Communication
As I wrote at the start, the best risk log in the world is pointless if it is not regularly reviewed and communicated appropriately across the team. I see the risk log as being as important as the project plan or weekly/monthly report. It is how we share with our team what we are concerned about, and what we are doing to avoid and contain risks.
It does take discipline to make all of this happen, but stick with it, it’s surprising how quickly you feel uneasy if you don’t have a basic, up to date view of the risks you are working with.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how risk management has helped you, or how an Elephant trashed your project!
The Headline Test
on Feb 03 in Taking Action, Understanding tagged Analysis by KeithWhat might Concorde crashing on take-off, and the Iraq War Inquiry tell us about making business decisions?
I often end up in situations where I am helping businesses make tricky decisions, some of which may have been put off for some time. They usually involve big, important things that affect people, profit, livelihoods, even lives.
Read the full article…
Microsoft SCCM at Essex Police - Project Management
on Jan 25 in Case Studies tagged Action, Microsoft, Planning by KeithCritical Action Limited was chosen as Project Management partner by EACS Limited, for their project to roll out Microsoft Systems Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 to Essex Police’s 4000 PCs.
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Microsoft Online Services
on Nov 19 in Blog, Strategy tagged Microsoft, Streamlining by KeithCritical Action has today qualified to sell Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services.
The award of this accreditation is part of a project we have to develop a new product for our SME customers, aimed at streamlining the management of lots of the basic, fundamental information that our businesses rely upon.
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Future History
on Sep 25 in Blog, Strategy tagged Strategy, Workshops by KeithSetting your strategy for the future is always tricky, as of course, none of us really knows what’s going to happen.
Just look back 5, 10 or 20 years to see how far we’ve come. Who hasn’t said to themselves “if you’d told me 10 years ago that I’d be [insert amazing thing we take for granted now], I’d have laughed at you!”
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Microsoft Business Value Planning
on Aug 19 in Planning tagged Action, Analysis, Microsoft, Planning by Keith
Critical Action Limited has become one of 20 UK companies accredited to provide Microsoft’s Business Value Planning packaged services to eligible Microsoft users with Software Assurance as part of their licensing.
New Intro to Critical Action
on Aug 13 in Taking Action, Understanding tagged Action, Analysis by Keith
Allow Us To Introduce…
The new intro "in action"
We have recently created a “quick intro” to Critical Action Limited, as a PDF for you and your clients to download.
It explains a bit about what we stand for, and introduces our new campaign message - “On a mission to simplify consulting“.
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Envisioning the Future
on Jul 21 in Strategy, Understanding tagged Future by KeithThe latest round of Microsoft Labs “envisioning” videos have been getting quite a bit of press lately (sadly I didn’t get to this year’s Worldwide Partner Conference to catch the latest “live”).
Click here to see them (in a new window). Some are quite thought provoking, which is, I suppose, the intention.
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Perfectionism - Enemy of Priority?
on Jul 14 in Priority, Understanding tagged Analysis, Prioritisation by KeithBusiness improvement thoughts come to me in the strangest places…
We’ve just had a period of sunshine and rain that has been great for the grass in our horses’ field, but it has also caused the ragwort to sprout. Ragwort is poisonous to horses and needs to be thoroughly eradicated from fields (I think it may even be an offence to knowingly let it grow).
This means going out with a special fork to remove the plants including the deep roots. My wife asked me to concentrate first on the plants that had grown enough in the week to flower, to prevent them going to seed and exacerbating the problem.
Being my usual self, I set out with the wheelbarrow and fork, determined to clear every last vestige of ragwort from a 3 acre field.
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Nine Principles for Taking Critical Action
on Jul 03 in Understanding tagged Action, Analysis by KeithRecently, we’ve been crystallising our approach to solving problems and seizing opportunities, to build a repeatable, consistent model that can be rapidly applied to save time and money, and create value for our customers - and their customers too. In tough economic times, action needs to be decisive yes, but incisive also - not much point making the wrong decision quickly! Anything that helps in the quest to get it right will help immensely at the moment (and when recovery comes).