What methods have you seen used or have you used to monitor

Risk Monitoring and Control (graded)

What methods have you seen used or have you used to monitor and control for risks?

How effective have these methods been in controlling risks? What are some general

symptoms for a project beset by risks?

Known Risks – are risks those have been identified and analyzed, making it possible to plan

response for them. For example, you know that one of your employees will go for leave

during your project; therefore you already plan to replace him or her with someone.

Unknown Risks – are those risks that cannot be managed proactively, which suggests that the

project team should create a contingency plan. For example, you do not know if any of your

employees may go for leave, but you made a contingency plan in case if anyone leaves.

Some of the general symptoms for a project beset by risks are –

– There would be some deviation from the original project planning and it can show up in the

project.

– The project will be behind schedule. This is one of the most common symptoms that one

could find in the project beset by risks.

– The project would have exceeded the budget. This is another common symptom. Project

manager needs to spend money on troubleshooting or to fix the problems or issues arising in

the project.

– The project’s key components are not working. This is a risk factor especially for complex

projects, where all the components are interrelated.

– Poor communication between the project team members, key stakeholders and client.

– No adequate tracking and progress monitoring happening in the project. This is also a sign

that project might fail or has serious issues.

References: http://www.brighthubpm.com/risk-management/90960-identifying-project-risks-

symptoms-and-solutions/

Deviations from plan (as identified during the monitoring and controlling process)

should be examined for root causes as well as seriousness of the root cause. All, What

happens if you do not proactively monitor and control throughout the project life cycle?

The project will be at a very high risk of failing; lack of proactive monitoring and controlling

will prevent the project manager from identifying any type of deviation from the initial plan,

which will then open the project to a wide range of unidentified risks that turns into

problems. The project will suffer and cause continuously problems and the PM will be held

accountable for not monitoring the project. This will cause more problems for the project life

cylce that could have been preventing if it was monitor timely. Without monitoring the

process, you will likely not understand the impact the deviation will have to the project. In

the case of risk, a deviation could increase the probability of the risk to occur, or its impact to

the project. Without control, these risks could cause the project to be late, over budget, or the

product could not meet specification. Being proactive helps to reduce the impact and allows

you to pursue those project opportunities that are important. Monitoring the risks allows the

PM to staying informed and prepared to deal with such risks. By not monitoring or

controlling risks throughout the project’s life cycle the PM is not aware of these threats. In

some cases the PM might be able to take action that would minimize the impact of the risk or

prevent it from escalating. If the PM was not monitoring the risks the PM would not be able

to take such action. Any deviation from the original plan should trigger an immediate action

plan to correct them. Because any such deviation would cause the project cost overrun or the

project schedule slippage. There are always some root causes behind such deviation. It is

project manager’s responsibility to understand those root causes and try to fix them as and

when they occur. Project manager always has to keep an eye to spot any such deviation

otherwise if unnoticed for a prolonged duration, it can completely jeopardize the project

success and project objectives may not be met. The biggest issue and reason why projects fail

is because they do run out of money, which means that the project went over budget because

all the risks aren’t identified. Also because the PM does not have a good control over what

activities are complete and which ones are taking how much money. Monitoring the project

scope and control ovr the budget will help complete the project on time. To not proactively

monitor and control risks throughout the project life cycle, particularly when a plan has been

devised is like setting up and paying for insurance and not using it when you need to. If we

don’t proactively monitor and control throughout our project’s life cycle, costs can get out of

hand in a hurry. If the project deviates from the plan, it’s critical to isolate why as soon as we

can so we can go back to the client about making changes in a cost effective manner. The

project can get very behind schedule or can end up far over budget if the PM and project team

do not actively monitor the project throughout it’s lifecycle. There was an old saying we used

when I was in the US Navy. “You get what you Inspect, not what you Expect”. That being

said it is obvious that a project must be monitored from beginning to end if the risks involved

are to be managed adequately.

If there is no close monitoring throughout the duration of the project, the likelihood of the

project being breached is highly likely. These needs to be examined by the risk and project

team then re-examined to resolve the issue ASAP. When there is breach and no follow

through plan, this can hurt the duration, budget, and deadline of the project. Monitoring and

close observation from start to finish needs to be implemented in any project at this size. If

you do not monitor and control the risk, you are basically setting the project up for failure. If

the project has to be finished then not monitoring and controlling can cause the project to be

severely over budget. In the project problems start to pile up and then as a project manager

you find yourself reacting to the situations instead of following your proactive plan that

should have been used to counter the risk. An old professor once said to my class that

problems are not fine wine they do not age well with time. Unmonitored risk will result in a

disaster.