Part 3: Preparation and risk management (continued)
Learning activity 6: Constraints, assumptions, and risk part 2
In your Workbook, for the goal/project you created in the “setting a SMART goal for a project” activity:
- List the constraints (time, cost, and scope), assumptions, and risks.
NOTE: Identifying potential out-of-scope activities can be challenging. Try communicating with colleagues/friends who may have completed similar tasks!
- Quantify those risks according to the risk table shown above (for quantifying risk).
- Compile all this information and develop a risk management plan.
Risk management plan
- Identify all possible threats (uncertain events or conditions).
- Identify the highest risk to the success of the project.
- Assess the vulnerability or likelihood of the threats occurring.
- Determine the severity of the impact if the threat becomes reality.
- Decide how to deal with the risk, develop contingency plans. Will you:
- Accept it? Develop risk reduction strategies? Develop an alternate plan?
For this activity there is no requirement to share the information but feel free to use the discussion forums to ask questions or for feedback. You can keep track of this on-going activity however you would like but remember you will continue to grow this project plan throughout the course of this module.
Go to your Workbook and write your answers.
If you would like to share or ask questions, Go to Discord, and write your answer.
Risk-reward paradigm
Most of the risks we have discussed have been negative and those in your risk management plan were probably all negative. However, risks could have positive effects and rewards as well. These could include unexpected opportunities.
Examples:
- An undergraduate student is hired to assist with your data collection, which may help reduce your workload but there may be some risk of compromising your data collection due to their inexperience.
- You have the opportunity to sample from another population, which doubles your sample size but adds additional time and work.
Consider how you might take on risk for reward in your own projects and remember this might differ from other people! A list of pros and cons may help you decide when to take on risk.
Caution!
Even though a reward may be enticing, we need to consider burnout as a risk when taking on additional tasks/work. The academic resilience module warns us about stress and burnout – you may want to consider going through the “Resilience and You” section which discusses specific skills to help frame and face stress.
Taking on additional tasks/work will also take up more time. When we’re balancing multiple projects, duties, and other obligations, learning time management becomes very important to ensure we can meet all our deadlines. We will learn more about time management and scheduling in the next section of our module.