Risk Response Planning – Getting Beyond Obvious
For risk response planning a good project manager ensures that thorough, executable, and approved risk response plans are in place before the risk occurs.
- Thorough means there should be no unexpected ramifications of the risk response planning like unforeseen costs or impacts on other parts of the project.
- Executable means the budget, people and capability exists to implement the response plan when it is necessary.
- Approved means the project manager has ensured pre-approval of the response plan so that it can be implemented with a minimum of delay as required. It is agonizing to be a part of a project where a risk occurs, and you have a response plan that your leadership or steering committee then discusses for two weeks before acting. (Note, I did not assume that a steering committee was leadership and you should never make that assumption, as a steering committee may be made up of leaders, its actions are often the opposite of leadership).
