Article Summary
Written By: Jameson Smieja
Title: “Think in Analogies to Anticipate More Project Risks”
Author(s): Lee Towe
In this article, Towe explains how “Many people have trouble anticipating risks
because their thinking is too literal.” He states how people who have more intuitive
thought processes have a better ability to think conceptually, which in turn makes them
better able to identify more risk. Their ability to think in analogies allows them to
examine unrelated past projects and examples in order to identify possible risks. It is
generally known that the first place to look for related risks is within the lessons learned
of similar projects. However, Towe explains how this approach can be very limited, in
that it does not allow other important but evasive risks from being identified. By making
analogies between unrelated projects, the source for identifying possible risks can be
expanded greatly to the benefit of a project.
Towe then goes on to explain how a good manager can guide his/her project team
to become better risk identifiers. While some people respond well to a simple challenge,
others must be coaxed into adjusting their thought processes to better identify risk. A
simple lecture about how some great inventions were spawned from unrelated ideas can
help fuel a good risk anticipation session. Towe even suggests playing word-relation
games to help “warm-up” the brain to thinking in analogies.
Following some of the simple techniques mentioned can have a large effect on a
risk identification session. Although seemingly trivial and abstract at first, Towe
guarantees a dramatic increase in the number of potential risks identified. In fact, he
promises that a risk identification session will double its normal output of identified
potential risks.
I found this article to be somewhat informative, very concise, and well structured.
All of the ideas were thought out and coherent with one another, although I did find the
content to be somewhat limiting in its use. Towe appeared to be writing the article as an
introduction to a larger presentation, and thus I feel a large portion of the main ideas were
merely summarized. However, I feel that alone the article still provides enough relevant
information to be useful for improving risk management processes. I rate this article a 7
out of 10 for its readability, concise format, and relative usefulness of content.