What is the significance of this phenomenon to a project manager?
Managing risk throughout a projects' duration is one of the most challenging and complex series of tasks a project manager will need to contend with on a project-by-project basis. As the deadline for a project nears, the costs of risks both from a delay standpoint in addition to a complete re-definition of the project itself become potentially very costly. Given how critical risk management is in managing projects and keeping them on schedule, it is surprising how many it projects specifically don't rely on risk management approaches and strategies to mitigate the potential impact to projects. Risk management, at all phases of a project, is in fact insurance against unforeseen events that could significantly delay or even discontinue the project altogether. In managing the severity of risk over a projects' lifecycle, it is important for project managers to create a plan for first identifying risks, choose which risks are severe enough to respond to, and finally defining a strategy for alleviating...
Project risk management plans begin with risk management planning, where project managers define a framework for evaluating and responding to risk, followed by risk identification. This step includes defining the potential impact of risks over time to the project. Next, qualitative and quantitative risk assessments are completed, where risks are characterized and analyzed from the standpoint of their impact on the projects' schedule. Quantitative risk assessment defines both probabilities and consequences of risks on the project. Risk response planning and risk monitoring and control are next completed as part of the risk management plan for projects. Clearly from this framework, which in fact becomes a methodology for assessing risk when put into use, quantifies which risks have the greatest potential impact on the project over time. As with any risk assessment, the greatest cost of an interruption to a project is in the final stages of completion, hence the need for creating a risk management plan early in a projects' planning phases.
