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How to Quickly Assess Project Pitfalls
by Adele Sommers
Being optimistic is a wonderful thing,
but being overly optimistic — in the face of
unrealistic odds — can sabotage a project’s
success. Over-optimism abounds when people view every
project as a “must-win” effort while failing
to flag potential problems. In Part
2 of this series, we identified 10 types of risks
related to choosing, estimating, and staffing your projects.
After identifying the potential risks,
the next phase entails assessing to what
extent the risks can negatively affect your project
in areas such as cost, schedule, quality, or
features. This article (Part 3 of the series)
explains how you can quickly evaluate any risks you’ve
identified to see whether they’re likely to overwhelm
your project.
 Risks
You May Have Flagged
Using the ideas in Part 2 of this article
series, you and your team may have identified one or
more concerns related to a project you’re weighing.
Ten considerations appear below; you might think of
many others. If your answer to any question is “yes”
— or even “maybe” — in relation
to your project, it means that you’ve flagged a
risk:
1) Is the project non-compelling or a bad fit
for the project team?
2) Will the project scope entail operating in unfamiliar
territory?
3) Are project requirements, such as product features,
complex?
4) Are the requirements pitted against an aggressive
schedule?
5) Are too few personnel and resources available
for the project?
6) Will coordination with many different collaborators
be needed?
7) Are the primary collaborators unfamiliar to
the project team?
8) Are project team members discouraged from raising
concerns?
9) Are there insufficient review and test cycles
in the schedule?
10) Are there no standard protocols for managing
scope changes?
Assessing the Risks You’ve Identified -- How Worrisome
Are They?
Once you have a list of risks, you can
next assess them to find out whether they will  be
mildly annoying or could wreak havoc on your project.
This is a quick and simple process for evaluating them.
1a. Start by giving each risk a name
or label.
Example: Imagine that your family has approached
you about redecorating your kitchen because your relatives
are coming for a family reunion the week after next.
Your family believes that several changes are needed,
as follows:
Project requirements:
* New faux paint treatment on the walls
* Resurfacing all of the kitchen cabinetry
* Laying new tile on top of the vinyl flooring
* Installing crown molding around the ceiling
 Time
available: Two weekends (four days) within the next
10-day period. But you don’t believe that's nearly
enough time to complete the job!
So, of all of the risks you’ve identified, you
might label one of them “Too Many Features/Too
Little Time.” This means that the project requirements
are too numerous, too complex, or both, given the time
available.
1b. Next, describe the kinds of problems
this risk could cause.
Also ask how likely it is to occur. For
instance, if you're concerned that you won't have enough
time in the schedule to incorporate everything requested,
what problems might it cause whoever will be using the
product, system, or solution? Are those chances fairly
high? Describing these concerns can help everyone on
your team agree on just how serious that potential risk
is.
Example: Your relatives might arrive while the
work is still in progress, and the kitchen will be unusable.
Also, if you bow to the pressure to hurry, the quality
of the work may be low. Both of these problems are likely
if your family members try doing the work themselves,
since they’re not skilled in home improvements.
2. Give each identified risk a “potential
impact” score or rating.
You can give each risk a High Impact,
Medium Impact, Low Impact, or No Impact
score, based on simple numbers you can derive easily.
One way is to assign relative values to the negative
impact a risk may have on the project cost, schedule,
quality, and features — with a different value
possible for each of these four areas. For example,
a high negative impact might be a 9, a medium
impact a 5, a low impact a 1, and no impact
a zero.
Example: Your kitchen redecorating project might
earn scores like those below.
Cost - You estimate that by doing the work yourselves,
you’ll possibly reduce costs (if you don’t
botch the job). So your "Too Many Features/Too
Little Time" risk might have a medium negative
impact on cost, for a score of 5.
Schedule - Since you feel backed into an almost
unworkable time frame, you expect a high negative impact
on schedule, for a score of 9.
Quality - Because you expect to rush through
the project, you anticipate a high negative impact on
quality, for a score of 9.
 Features
- Some features probably can’t be completed,
regardless of how fast you go. You foresee a high negative
impact on features, for a score of 9.
The total score for all four areas in this example
is 32, very close to the maximum. When you complete
the process for any other risks you identified, you
can compare this score with the others to see which
risks are of greatest concern. You can then determine
the priority order in which to mitigate them.
When you are finished with this phase,
you’ll have a set of named and assessed risks.
Following this, Part 4 in the series will explain how
to brainstorm ways to avoid, eliminate, work around,
or otherwise mitigate each risk.
Copyright 2005
Adele Sommers
Want to publish this article
in your newsletter or Web site? Be sure to include:
Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the creator of the award-winning
“Straight Talk on Boosting Business Performance”
success system at LearnShareProsper.com.
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By
that I mean new concepts often need to sneak past
our mental filtering mechanisms to get in. Those defenses
are our egos. They'll try to convince us we already
know something, even if we're just seeing or hearing
it for the first time. Or that we've “been there,
done that.” But do we know it? Have
we really been there or done anything remotely like
it?
For
example, my primary persona's name is Barbara Markey.
She's a multitalented, 37-year-old software professional
with a graphic design and technical communication background.
Barbara and her husband Ben hike regularly with their
two dogs, go on camping trips, and enjoy outdoor crafts.
She has earned a strong reputation at the company where
she’s worked for over 11 years as an interface
designer and system developer. 
