Risk management - Checklists
Checklists
The checklist is a general result of the ‘issue’ based method of assessment [see Issue based] and the typical items to be aware of are:
- Can end up concentrating on historical experience perhaps at the experience of new or future risks.
- Can be considered as exhaustive with the danger of becoming complacent.
- Does not easily assess the total project risk.
In addition:
- Interdependence of schedule activities are hard to visualise
- Risks identified are not readily prioritised
- If its not on the list it is likely to be ignored
- The list may be orientated to a particular project and miss the experiences of others
- Necessary detail may be lacking
- Can promote a simple view of risks and the risk management process
Any checklist used should be considered as an initial help to a more formal procedure.
You should be trying to generate a list that is not so long that it becomes difficult to manage or starts to include trivial risks.
As well as looking at the internal risk of activities you should also consider potential external problems.
These sort of check lists tend to generate perceived risks based upon historical events. This is a good thing as you don’t want to repeat yesterdays mistakes.
However, be aware of trying to encourage the ‘brain storm’ used to generate the list to consider new and future events.
One problem with a list is that the project team can see it as exhaustive. Beware of complacency.
This method is not very good at trying to assess the overall impact of risk on the total plan.