Strategies For Effective Project Risk Management And Reporting In An Essay.

Critically analyse project risks and develop a range of strategies to effectively manage those risks in order to ensure expected project management outcomes.

Planning for risk management involves determining how to approach, plan and execute the various activities required for managing project risks. Because new risks may be introduced at any point in the project management life cycle, risk management is a continuous process. It begins at the project-planning phase and continues throughout the project-execution phase.

Effective communication is a key factor for managing project execution. However, project managers may face challenges as they communicate with their teams and other project stakeholders. Other factors such as developing, leading and managing project team members are also critical for successfully achieving project goals.

Create a risk management report for the approved/given case study used in Assessment 1. In your report, include:

1. Risk identification and impact assessment

• Identify and critically analyse the impact of possible risks for the case study.
• Record the risks identified in a Risk Register.
• Use a risk probability and impact matrix to rate and prioritise the risks.

2. Risk management and reporting

• Develop mitigation strategies to effectively manage identified risks in the case study.
• Identify and describe how the stakeholders will be apprised of the project's ongoing risk management activities.

The written portion of your Risk Management Plan should consist of 1000 words/student. For students’ reference, an example of a Probability and Impact Matrix is illustrated in the PMBOK Guide®.

Project Risk Management: Approach, Planning and Execution

Project status reports are mainly used to communicate the progress of the project to different stakeholders like the steering committee, senior manager and the project sponsor (Marchewka, 2014). Reporting is done regularly so that the stakeholders of the project can take the responsibilities of the business issues related to the project. They help in tracking, evaluating and reviewing the progress of the report.

Project status reports are made depending on the size of the project and requirements of the stakeholders. If the size of the project is large then the frequency of developing status reports will increase. The report will provide information like the risks of the project and strategies for risk management to different stakeholders.

Communication is the most important factor that help to maintain the relationships between different members of the project team. Effective communication to the stakeholders is significantly crucial for the success of the project. It is estimated that around 56 percentage of money invested on the project are at risk because of ineffective communication between the members of the project team and among the stakeholders (Terzieva, 2014). Therefore the challenges of the status report are:

• The project status report should be prepared in a way that will effectively communicate various data of the report to the stakeholders.
• Will be successful in eliminating the communication gaps for business benefits.
• It should be successful in developing the use of various standardized project communication practices among the stakeholders.

The project status report has several drawbacks that unnecessarily complicates the project. They are discussed as under:

• Project status reports mainly helps the stakeholders to take decisions (Kerzner, 2017). Either too much information or too less information is provided that confuses the stakeholders and as a result effective decision-making process is hampered.
• The data provided in the report is often misinterpreted by the key stakeholders that leaves a negative impact on the project.
• The approach to the status report is always technical. A particular method is followed that consists of project controls (Richardson, 2014). However, the stakeholders might not be accustomed to the project controls and therefore fails to understand them.
• The project status report is performed regularly however, the stakeholders require some time to view the report and take relevant decisions (Bryde, Broquetas, & Volm, 2013). In some cases, there is shortage of time allotted to the stakeholder and they take fast decision, which might not be correct. This hampers the goals of the project.

Difference between the reports provided to teams, sponsors and steering committee:

Project status reports are provided to various stakeholders for distributing the information. The progress of the report is given to them so that they can take correct decisions related the project.

However, there are some differences between status reports given to teams, sponsors and the steering committee. For example, the status report provided to the project team will be more detailed than other stakeholders. This is because the team are the actual creators of the project. Therefore, the team members should get the detailed report of status so that they can decide accordingly to carry on the project (Mir, & Pinnington, 2014). The detailed status of the report should consist of the additional resources required, the change required in the structure of the project so that it sticks to the goals of it and information about extra cost incurred on the project.

However, the status provided to the sponsors about the project will be mainly the budget of the project. This is because sponsors are team that provides the cost of the project to the respective team members. They just need to know the project on which the team is working. The raw materials that is required in the project, the cost of each raw materials, the labour charges required and so on (Arjaliès, & Mundy, 2013). The details of the cost is provided as a sheet to the sponsors so that they can get an idea of the amount that they need to fund.

The steering committee has a number of roles to perform. They help for the development of the project, advices for better budgeting of the project, identifies and monitors the risks along with monitoring the quality of the project (Hornstein, 2015). Therefore, they should also be provided with the detailed status report. This will help them manage all the issues related to the project, improve the quality of the project by continuous supervision, identifying the risks and planning strategies to eliminate them (Pathak, & Bhola, 2015). The detailed report helps them to ensure that the project is meeting its aims and objectives. The steering committee also guides the project team to deal with various issues.

Effective Communication for Successful Project Execution

Part B:

Risk Management report of Corwin Corporation:

Major mistakes made by Corwin:

The major mistakes made by Corwin are:

• The corporation is rigid and does not accepts risks.
• Willing to undertake the contract with Peters Company knowing that it would be hard to collaborate with them.
• Selecting Dan West as the project manager as he had an expertise on managing.

Acceptance of the assignment:

Corwin should not have accepted the assignment. The assignment dealt with Peters Company who had a bad reputation in the market. Corwin was warned that it would be hard to deal with them.

The cost of the project changes with its progress. In-depth cost analysis done by experts is needed for bidding on projects rather than rough- draft specifications.

Requirement of active top management involvement:

Yes, active involvement of the top management was needed before the proposal went out of house. All the decisions were taken without the decision-making committee that consisted of four members including the three vice-presidents and the president of Corwin.

Absence of manufacturing vice-president:

No risks were imposed on the project for the absence of the manufacturing vice-president as all the work was done by Royce, vice-president of engineering and Dan West, R&D scientists.

Attitude of Dicks Pott:

Royce, West and Pott began to prepare the proposal. Royce prepared the costing sheets while West prepared the direct labour man-hours. As Pott was not familiar with these techniques, therefore he just observed the works of the other two and provided legal advice whenever necessary. Though contract man is the president’s representative and needed to take the required decisions, however, Pott depended on Royce to take any decisions relating to the project.

Ex-executives lack of concern:

If the ex-executives were concerned then they would not have appointed West for this task as he in expertise in internal projects rather than external one. Therefore, the ex-excutives had lack of concern.

Importance to keep the line managers informed:

The line managers are responsible to manage the employees and the resources of an organization. Therefore, it is required to keep the line managers informed about the progress of the project.

Attitude of Dr. Reddy:

Reddy was on vacation however, when he was informed about the proposal he gave a green signal. When West wanted his help, he was not ready to help him and said that he was overburdened with other works and will not be able to help him.

When West found that the test results were not matching with that proposed by Pat, he should have informed the higher authorities. He could have informed this to Delia about this.

Managing the five-test failure situation:

First, West should keep Delia informed regularly about the results. He should not have believed on Pat to such an extent.

Immediate procurement of materials:

The immediate procurement of materials is a mistake. The project was in collaboration with Peters Company therefore, representative of Corwin Corporation should have obtained the materials required after consulting with Peters Company.

Freedom to visit laboratory personnel:

Pat Ray should not be given the freedom to visit laboratory personnel any time because this would interfere in their working which will leave a negative impact in manufacturing.

Right to remove an employee:

An in-house representative should not be given the right to remove a functional employee from the project. The higher authority of Corwin Corporation only has this right.

Creating a Risk Management Report for a Case Study

Handling of the extra tests:

The extra tests could have been handled by asking for more funding from Peters Company and then compensating it in any further projects.

Attitude of Dr. Reddy when told to assume control of project:

Dr. Reddy changed the test matrix completely and made a new one when told to control the project.

As the first communication was made between Frimel and Delia, therefore, his involvement was necessary.

Yes, it would be better to appoint a marketing person as project manager.

No, the project should not be refused just because it does not fits into a good methodology, rather methodology should be changed that fits the given project.

No, the customer should not be informed that only the projects that fits the methodology should be accepted.

Risks in Corwin Corporation:

• Failure of the project. The representative of Peter’s company was not co-operating with the Corwin’s employees (Lam, 2014). Therefore, there was a high chance of the failure of the project.
• Employees leaving the company thereby shutting down of the project. The behavior that Corwin’s employee got from Pat Ray made them demoralized. It seemed that he entered the company to cause disruption. Therefore, there was high chance that the employees will leave the company.
• Capital shortage in the company. The budget that Peters Company had set for the raw materials exceeded largely. Therefore, there was a high chance that Corwin will run out of money.

Risk Register, risk probability and impact matrix:

Strategies for solving the financial issues: Cash flow shortage in the company can be managed by disposing the unused assets, maintaining and scrutinizing the financial reports on a regular basis.

Strategies for mitigating the employee related issues: The risk of employee leaving the company can be managed by facilitating effective communication between the directors and employees (Murase et al., 2016). The employees in the Corwin Corporation should have the knowledge about the leave policy of the company (Eberle, Berens, & Li, 2013). The directors of the Corwin Corporation should ensure safety of the employees in the workplace.

Mitigating the risk of project failure: To mitigate the risks of project failure the directors and the vice presidents of Corwin should conduct meetings to plan strategies for managing the situation (Binder, 2016).

Method to appraise the stakeholders about risk management: Communication is the effective way to appraise about the risk management strategies to the stakeholders (Van Boxstael et al., 2013). The risk matrix along with the mitigation methods should be provided to the stakeholders through mails or printed as a report.

References:

Arjaliès, D. L., & Mundy, J. (2013). The use of management control systems to manage CSR strategy: A levers of control perspective. Management Accounting Research, 24(4), 284-300.

Binder, J. (2016). Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.

Bryde, D., Broquetas, M., & Volm, J. M. (2013). The project benefits of building information modelling (BIM). International journal of project management, 31(7), 971-980.

Eberle, D., Berens, G., & Li, T. (2013). The impact of interactive corporate social responsibility communication on corporate reputation. Journal of business ethics, 118(4), 731-746.

Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 291-298.

Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: a guide to measuring and monitoring project performance. John Wiley & Sons.

Lam, J. (2014). Enterprise risk management: from incentives to controls. John Wiley & Sons.

Marchewka, J. T. (2014). Information technology project management. John Wiley & Sons.

Mir, F. A., & Pinnington, A. H. (2014). Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), 202-217.

Murase, M., Iwami, Y., Sawano, H., Tokunaga, Y., Miyake, K., Takeuchi, K., & Koike, T. (2016). A regional process under the international initiative for IFM. In E3S Web of Conferences(Vol. 7, p. 20020). EDP Sciences.

Pathak, G., & Bhola, S. (2015). Stakeholders in pharmaceutical business.

Richardson, G. L. (2014). Project management theory and practice. Auerbach Publications.

Terzieva, M. (2014). Project Knowledge Management: how organizations learn from experience. Procedia Technology, 16, 1086-1095.

Van Boxstael, S., Habib, I., Jacxsens, L., De Vocht, M., Baert, L., Van de Perre, E., ... & De Meulenaer, B. (2013). Food safety issues in fresh produce: bacterial pathogens, viruses and pesticide residues indicated as major concerns by stakeholders in the fresh produce chain. Food Control, 32(1), 190-197.