Well, well, well if it isn’t the consequences of my own inactions
Recently I did a risk analysis workshop on a project I’m working on together with the client.
It works kind of like this:
Recipe for a quick risk analysis
- First list as many risks as you can come up with. It can be risks when it comes to technology, company politics, product, competition, budget, the team or almost anything.
- Then you score the risks by giving them points for how likely they are to happen and how big the consequences would be if they happen. You get a final score for each one by multiplying likeliness with consequence.
- You then come up with ways of minimizing the damage for the risks that have the highest score, assign someone responsible for handling it and some kind of deadline for doing it.
The risk you often miss
One risk we didn’t write down was that we wouldn’t actually take action on some of the risks, which is something that easily can happen.
Because facing certain risks means spending time on something that hasn’t happened yet where you can somehow grasp what it means when it happens (like global warming) but not connect it to some manageable action in your day to day life. Saving the hard stuff for later.
ALSO READ: How forcing yourself to make decisions leads to better products
Not doing anything can be a huge mistake and the damage can get much worse if you wait.
It’s not always taking an action that have the biggest impact. Sometimes its not doing something.
