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Managing risk in projects

Material on project risk and governance, and the related international standard IEC 62198, 'Managing risk in projects – Application guidelines', and how to implement effective risk management in your projects

  • Quantitative risk analysis and project governance: Risk Engineering Society Conference, RISK 2023

    Dr Dale Cooper spoke at the Risk Engineering Society Conference, RISK 2023, held in Brisbane Meanjin on 7-8 September 2023. His paper provided a short summary of the role of quantitative analysis of uncertainty in governance and decision making in large projects. It focused on the interaction between quantitative analysis and tollgate decisions at the end of each project phase, including the contribution of quantitative analysis to the decision support package (DSP) used by an investment review committee. It noted the different contributions of distributional outputs, sensitivity outputs and input data about uncertainties to specific parts of the DSP. Finally, it noted that cost and schedule uncertainty may not be the most important factors if the main focus of decisions is on project value.

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  • Does risk management add value? RMIA Conference 2023

    Dr Dale Cooper was an invited speaker at the Risk Management Institute of Australasia (RMIA) Conference, held in Adelaide Tarntanya on 8-10 May 2023. He outlined the evidence that good enterprise risk management (ERM) contributes to better organisational performance, and that good project risk management contributes to better project outcomes. An extended version of his presentation is available.

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  • Embedding risk management at the top

    The purpose of risk management is to create and protect value by helping us achieve better business outcomes. It should be part of our day-to-day activities. When it is integrated closely into the way we manage our business, it helps us be more effective and efficient, make better decisions, capture opportunities and avoid unpleasant surprises. This short tutorial describes how we can embed risk management at the executive level, to lead its wider adoption in our operations.

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  • Adapting governance for complex projects

    This paper offers insights into methods for dealing with governance in complex projects. This is not a primer on complexity or strategies for dealing with it in general; rather it points readers towards interesting concepts and areas so they can develop their own ideas.

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  • Range analysis – summary of good practice

    This tutorial is drawn from Broadleaf’s long experience with project range analysis, also referred to as quantitative risk analysis or probabilistic risk analysis. It describes some key lessons about project range analysis, and what constitutes good practice. The material covers the analysis of both costs and schedules; the same principles apply to both.

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  • Range analysis resources for projects

    Broadleaf has extensive expertise in schedule and cost range analysis for major projects and related analysis for commercial applications. Range analysis is sometimes called probabilistic risk analysis or quantitative risk analysis. We have been conducting such analyses for large clients around the world for many years. This tutorial summarises some of the resources and case studies available on our web site, with a particular focus on material relating to projects.

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  • Learning lessons and root cause analysis

    Organisations use root cause analysis to learn lessons from both successes and failures, and then to develop plans that will improve performance. This tutorial describes consistent and systematic methods that can be adopted for learning lessons and generating improvements. It describes two methods: fishbone analysis, and cause and effect analysis.

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  • Quantifying the risk to software project costs

    In principle, software project cost risk has the same characteristics as the cost risk in other types of projects. However, there are good reasons why software projects have a reputation for being prone to over running budgets and schedules. This note outlines some of the factors involved and how they can be used to make realistic assessments of cost risk, achievable targets and contingency requirements.

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  • Headline risks – seeing the big picture

    Risk assessments are often undertaken in great detail, or several assessments are conducted on different parts of an organisation, project or program. The detail may be appropriate for tactical decisions and specific risk treatment planning, but there is often too much detail for high-level decisions and important insights about the whole organisation might pass unnoticed. Headline risks provide a high-level summary of what might happen and what the consequences might be. This resource note describes how headline risks can be developed and used, with examples from recent case studies.

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  • The real risk to your project budget

    This paper examines the structure of cost uncertainty in an estimate and demonstrates how it can be addressed by separating expert judgements from numerical calculations and linking the two together using risk factors that represent uncertainty in major cost drivers. It sets out some principles for deciding what to address by means of expert judgement and what to implement as numerical calculations.

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  • Complexity and project risk

    We assume that large and complex projects will be risky. Complexity, scale and risk are bound together in the way we think, feeding off one another. It may be, though, that complex projects are risky not just because of complexity but also because of the way we choose to approach them. The interaction between complexity and project management raises many interesting issues. This is just one of them that has wide ranging implications.

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  • What does risk look like in a complex project?

    Risk management has an interesting relationship with complexity. Established approaches to project risk management are based on a classical linear project execution model. The rise in truly complex projects represents both an opportunity and a need for fresh thinking.

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  • Project risk modelling

    Videos describing quantitative project risk modelling are available here. These resources are under development and will grow to include informative presentations and tutorial material.

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  • Risk management for projects (notes on prompt questions)

    The prompt associated with these notes is intended to stimulate discussion about key aspects of risk management in your projects. This guide sets out key points of good practice and common pitfalls in each topic in the prompt. Please contact us if you would like a deeper evaluation of your project risk management framework and processes.

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  • Project Risk Management Guidelines

    The new edition of ‘Project Risk Management Guidelines: Managing Risk with ISO 31000 and IEC 62198’ includes the new international standards ISO 31000 ‘Risk management’ and IEC 62198 ‘Managing risk in projects’. 

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  • Investment opportunity management and governance

    All organisations must invest effort and capital to grow, but sustained growth does not happen by accident. Organisations need prudent processes to assemble, progress and manage a portfolio of investment opportunities.

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