Risk Assessment and Management
Introduction
Dealing with Project Risk
Risk is inevitable on any project. All projects have some degree of uncertainty in their
assumptions and in the environment in which they are executed. Project risks cannot be
eliminated entirely, but a large proportion of them can be anticipated and reduced. This
document will specifically identify the risk factors for this project and will establish a risk
management strategy to reduce the known risks. This strategy will define safeguards to
minimize the probability that certain risks will materialize and will identify actions to
deal with the risks if they do occur.
The Faculty A&P Task Force will assume responsibility for the completeness and
accuracy of the project risks and risk mitigation strategies. Throughout the project, the
risks will be revisited, and the mitigation strategies will be updated.
Project Risks
Risk Factor
Probability
Risk Management Strategy
If we build it, they won’t come.
There are no incentives to use an
automated system; there aren’t even
incentives to perform the steps of
the current paper-bases system in a
timely manner.
High
Policy and practice changes
affecting forms come from the
School at random intervals, with
little or no warning, and must be
applied retroactively to all
paperwork in process. (Reported
by Annelies Ransome)
High
Suggestions:
The system must be easy to use and
provide clear instructions to users. This
suggests an extensive, easy to use Help
feature, as well as excellent user interaction
design that goes beyond the usual usability
design.
Consider creating a CV management tool
with choices of formats so that the same
information could be used for different
purposes (A&P, NIH and other grant
proposals, general use, etc.)
Develop incentives for timely document
preparation, and sanctions for lateness.
The system must make it easy to determine
both the status of an appointment or
promotion, and the point at which it is
being held up.
School policy and practice changes should
follow an agreed upon timetable, and
should not need to be applied to
appointments and promotions that are past
a certain agreed upon point in their
preparation.
The system should be designed so that it is
easy to add additional forms and
requirements, or to change a particular
form’s template, or its content.
Contingent Action
Risk Factor
Probability
Risk Management Strategy
Data is highly confidential, and
there can be legal ramifications for
maintaining versions prior to the
final one.
High
Secure sign-on
The system will strictly confine an
individual to the pages he/she is allowed
to see, given his/her role, while allowing
broad access to individuals with broad
responsibilities.
Introduce a concept of versioning the
documents (or each document) and
destroying prior versions and notes
pertaining to them.
Phased implementation suggested
by the Provost. (May or may not be
a risk: needs assessment.)
Possible risk:
Departmental procedures and forms
not standardized across the school?
(May or may not be a risk; needs
assessment)
Not enough policy and practice
changes may be implemented for
the system to be seen as an
improvement.
Although there is a relationship
between the data and data entry
done in PeopleSoft, the HR people
who enter data into PeopleSoft are
not related to the FAA’s who
assemble the paperwork for
appointment or promotion, at least
in a large department (Medicine).
Complexity of requirements
There is no champion process
manager.
Policy, procedure, and
organizational changes may lag
behind the system development,
leading to unclear requirements.
Training a diverse group of people
to use a new system must be done
carefully.
Use prototyping to discover requirements
that may be hidden, or are derived from
other requirements.
Provide many quality review points to
ensure that the requirements are adequately
addressed by the system.
Project plan should contain a fair amount of
contingency time, to address requirements
that may surface only during development
and quality assurance.
The system’s interaction design must be of
the highest quality. Content of instructions
must be clear. Help facility must be clear
and complete, and easy to use.
Contingent Action