Risky Business (part 1)

Risky Business \(part 1\)

May 21, 2003 - Successful developers know that the secret to the success of a project lies in managing the risks that might unfold during the course of the project. In this article, find out how to build a comprehensive risk management plan that allows you to complete your projects on time, every time. for full article.

Please discuss this article in this thread. You can read the article here .

I read the article twice.

I think Risk Management is a difficult subject so I applaude the author for writing the article. There are many useful pointers for anybody involved in project management - basics such as good monitoring/auditing practices that are essential.

However, I think the article is too 'shallow' to be of any practical use. There are no real formulas to apply and where the author has made an attempt to formulate an approach (RE, RC, RRL) the initial conditions are more 'qualitative' than 'quantative'.

For example:

Risk Exposure (RE) = 'The probability of occurrence x Impact Risk Exposure

How do I calculate 'probability of occurance' in the first place?

I cannot think of how to begin quantifying the risk of one of my top programmers leaving in the middle of a project due to x, y or z reasons.

It just felt like I was reading the 'glossary' in the back of a book on Risk Management for Dummys.

I would ask the author to include some case-studies in the next installment, to use real numbers and instances so we can work though the motions.

I don't know, what does everybody think?

Nao

I think you have some valid points - writing an article like this is a delicate balance between writing a case study and writing an article that would appeal to someone whose knowledge base on this topic was limited - and trying to find a balance between the two.

We only intended the article to be a very basic introduction to the topic, and this is stated at the outset itself. Please do NOT treat this as an in-depth course, it is not supposed to be (and something of that sort would also probably not be very valuable to most readers here as well).

All we were attempting was to provide a basic appreciation of the raison d'etre of the science of risk management

And yes, a case study will be included in the second part, together with links to more detailed material...coming soon

Melonfire,

I wrote that review as objectively as I could (see 'nao' above). I'm not trying to be nice for the sake of being nice - if it was a crap article, I would have said so! - but I think it was a good intro. I think I went into it thinking, "$h*t! I need to read this!"...

I re-read my posting - the part where I wrote:



It came out wrong - I now realise that it WAS intentionally written as a breif summary - sorry about that!

But hey, now you got me hooked for part II!

Best,

Nao

Nao

If you havent done so already, I highly recommend signing up for the Weekly DevShed newsletter, which will tell you when part II is actually posted.

nao - No problem. Keep coming back and telling us what you think, it helps us get better at it

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