CERM® Risk Insights

Guest Post by John Ayers (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

My contention is management many times compromises quality to mitigate budget and cost issues resulting in a major risk to the project.

How to minimize the quality risk on a project is addressed in this paper. The approach to do this is based on my 30 years of project and project risk management experience and knowledge. Let’s start with a story to illustrate my contention.

Guest Post by Andrew Sheves (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Many people have a few smoke alarms dotted around their house and, to me, these are some of the most straightforward set-it-and-forget-it risk management tools you can get. You set these up and then…nothing. You can forget about them until that annoying ‘chirp’ sound wakes you up one night, telling you to change the battery.

And most people will never hear their smoke alarm go off except for those times that their cooking gets a little out of hand.

However, if there were a fire, they’d know about it immediately and be able to react.

Guest Post by John Ayers (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Studies show most projects fail due to poor management of known risks. The known risks on a project are:

1. Scope.
2. Schedule.
3. Cost.
4. Quality.

Generally speaking, cost problems are due to insufficient budget, poor budget control, and poor planning. How to minimize the cost (budget) risk on a project is addressed in this paper. The approach to do this is based on my 30 years of project and project risk management experience and knowledge.

Guest Post by Howard M. Wiener (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In the previous article (Enabling Agile Enterprise Risk Management Part II: Disciplines) I identified the disciplines necessary to enable you to transform your enterprise at speed. At the conclusion of that article, I promised to present a design for a repository and system to support AERM.  This article will fulfill that promise.

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

This is not an article about an endangered species plundered to near extinction as trophies for big game hunters or being poached for its aphrodisiacal ivory or describing a mythical elephant’s graveyard…it’s about those metaphorical elephants that frequent rooms in political corridors of power, boardroom suites and project offices around the World.  Although these elephants are known to exist they are either not immediately recognised or conveniently avoided.

Guest Post by Andrew Sheves (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

I’m sure you’ve heard people referring to COVID-19 as a ‘Black Swan’ – something that no-one could have seen coming – but is that actually the case?

Terrible though it is, I don’t think it’s accurate to describe the current situation as a Black Swan because we’ve had to deal with highly contagious, deadly diseases before.

Calling this a ‘Black Swan’ is, therefore, a way to excuse a confused response: ‘how could we have prepared for something that no-one could see coming?’

However, genuine Black Swan events do exist and we need to understand these because the consequences can be significant. It’s also useful to know what we can and cannot do to prepare for Black Swans due to the uncertainty that these involve.

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Micromanagement is rarely praised but is sometimes very necessary.  When new operations commence and procedures are being developed, or there is a high degree of complexity, it is essential to get things right and ‘micromanagement’ comes into its own.  Training new people can require micromanagement until they get up to speed, understand an organisation’s processes and procedures, and develop any necessary experience.  Also, if there is a need for greater control over an operation requiring accurate performance metrics then micromanagement will be the order of the day.

Guest Post by Andrew Sheves (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In David McKee’s book for children ‘Not Now Bernard’, a young boy tries to warn his parents about a monster in the yard, but they’re too busy to pay attention. All they say is ‘not now Bernard’ and ignore him. In the end, the monster eats Bernard and moves into the house, but his parents are still too busy to notice.

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Punch lines, ad-libs, and instrumental solos, even a single note on a Tibetan singing bowl, all depend on one thing…timing.  Project Communication is also about timing and, whilst many people speak and opine with impunity the timing of written communication and converting possibly wild words into black & white can often mean the difference between collaboration and cooperation or resistance and antagonism.

Guest Post by Howard M. Wiener (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In the previous article (Enabling Agile Enterprise Risk Management: Artifacts and Disciplines,) I identified the artifacts necessary to enable you to transform your enterprise at speed.  In this article, I will discuss the disciplines required to avoid creating Technical Debt by transforming and not just changing.

Guest Post by Daniel Burrus (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

In many ways, I am sure society is well aware of certain leadership principles that have stood the test of time in business environments. Personality traits such as integrity, honesty, and responsibility immediately come to mind; however, in a disruptive world, there are more that, many do not realize, are vital to professional success to find certainty.

Guest Post by Patrick Ow (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

How to get better results by solving problems before they occur in a fragile world

When people think of problem-solving, their mind may instinctively jump to thoughts of things that are broken or things that need fixing.

Problem to most people is a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome. [Read more…]

Guest Post by Howard M. Wiener (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Succeeding at Enterprise Risk Management depends upon your organization’s ability to identify existing risks and foresee what new or transformed ones you might be exposed to as your business evolves.  While companies may be capable of identifying obvious risks, they often fall short of accounting for dependencies that create or magnify others.  In addition, companies that employ a periodic process for adjusting their Risk Management to accommodate changing circumstances leave potential gaps in which things may have changed but await reassessment before they are managed.

Guest Post by John Ayers (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Studies show most projects fail due to poor management of known risks. The known risks on a project are:

1. Scope.
2. Schedule.
3. Cost.
4. Quality.

How to minimize the schedule risk on a project is addressed in this paper.  The approach to do this is based on my 30 years of project and project risk management experience and knowledge.

Guest Post by Andrew Sheves (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Effective execution is a matter of dealing with scarcity: a scarcity of time, a scarcity of resources, and scarcity of information (although too much information can also cause problems). Tools like a risk assessment help manage this scarcity by prioritizing things to allow you to better allocate resources on what’s most important.