Project Risk and Identifying Problems Checklist
Project Planning Identifies Problem Areas for Active Risk Management
Jan 27, 2009
There are many reasons a project will fail to deliver as expected, such as being late or over-budget. Project failure is such a problem that the project manager must actively manage that project risk. This should be done as part of the project planning process and subsequently through project active risk management.
Project Problem Checklist
The project problem checklist is a simple planning tool to help the project manager identify project risks early and take action to avoid or reduce the chance of the risk becoming a problem. A simple categorisation of potential problems is: people, process and technology, with people often being the area with the most significant potential for causing project problems. Use the following checklist as a prompt for project planning.
Potential People Problems
- Wrong resource (lack of training, experience or expertise) identified for task
- Resource unavailable when needed
- Project is under-resourced or lacks specific needed resource
- Project team working relationship generally or in specific cases is not effective
- Poor project team working or communication with third party suppliers
- Project team does not have access to expertise and external support
- Decision-making processes and authority is not clear for project team, project board or stakeholders
- People are not empowered to make appropriate decisions or do not have the personal authority to do so
- Wrong stakeholders or specific stakeholders identified
- Unclear communication with stakeholders
- Ineffective engagement with stakeholders
- Passive resistance by stakeholders who do not see the benefits of the project or do not support it
- Project structure is unclear or with undefined lines of communication, interaction and decision-making
- Unclear or undefined process for escalation of project issues (scope, financial, resource...)
- Prioritisation for people is unclear with potentially competing priorities
- Resource conflicts
Potential Process Problems
- Project methodology or approach is not clear or well-defined
- Project control mechanisms (change, documentation, configuration....) are not selected or inappropriate
- Processes defined for escalation, especially with third party suppliers
- Unclear project reporting process [to whom by who, what, when]
- Clear process for contribution to project by external groups that contribute to project but may or may not be part of the project team (quality, compliance, infrastructure, network...)
- Relationship of project deliverables with organisation's quality management system or service management
- Process for managing paper or electronic documentation and approval
- Access to information or related system, especially for new project team members
- Training processes for staff to comply with procedures or to obtain foundation level of knowledge for project tasks
Potential Technology Problems
- Just released technology that may suffer from teething problems
- Technology that needs to integrate with other technology and that has not been proven yet
- Technology performance, availability, capacity or scalability is less than required
- Technology resilience or redundancy is less than needed (ability to continue after a fault)
- Technology does not exist yet i.e. potentially will be late, is new and consequently untried
Project Risk Management
Working through this checklist during project planning will help to form a more complete and resilient project plan. This work will help to ensure a successful project by identifying potential problems and dealing with them early.
 |
 |
 |
 |
