Running head: RISK RESPONSE PLAN

RISK RESPONSE PLAN

Damien Johnson

CPMGT/300

John Sessions

Date:
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Purpose of a risk response plan

Risk Response Planning encompasses the process of developing options as well as determining

the actions that enhances opportunities while reducing significant threats to a project core

objectives. Risk response planning involves identification, and finally, the assignment of

personnel or the parties concerned to undertake the responsibilities for each identified and agreed

risk response. Risk response planning ensures that all the identified risks are addressed

adequately, and its effectiveness directly determines whether the identified risks will increase or

decrease for the overall project (Risk management, 2014).

Risk owner?

A risk owner is a person, specifically a member of a project team, who has been given the

responsibility to manage, monitor as well as control an individual identified and assigned risk as

well as handling the selected responses implementation for that particular risk (Risk

management, 2014). This person should be able to manage the assigned risk and is required to

have the knowledge, needed resources including the authority to deal with this risk. Assigning

different risks to different individuals is a critical part of risk management and helps in making it

make the person responsible for each assigned risk.

Who should be appointed to own risk on a project?

A person appointed to be a risk owner is the one seen to have the most knowledge on the

particular risk. The risk might be within this individual's remit concerning their duties and

responsibilities, but this person must have the necessary authority to use available resources in

managing the risk (Abkowitz, 2015). The individual must have the ability and be in a position to

task people to undertake the various treatment strategies that may be directed towards this
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particular risk. It's the role of the project leader with the help of the management team to assign

project risks to appropriate individuals.

What is a risk owner's role in the risk response plan?

The role of a risk owner is to manage, monitor as well as control a particular identified and

assigned risk as well as handling the selected responses implementation for that specific risk. He

or she should delegate people to undertake specific roles in dealing with this risk and should use

the available resources to him or her in managing this risk (Risk management, 2014).

How should a project manager assess and deal with risk?

A successful project manager should involve his or her project team in identifying all the adverse

events that could occur within the life of the project, and that could prevent successful project

implementation. Among these events that can impact project, application includes the project

being over budget before completion, project missing the deadline, or even the project failing

altogether (Abkowitz, 2015). To deal with the identified risks, the project manager can transfer

the risks to various external stakeholders. For instance, if a risk is identified within the supply

chain, the project manager can consider transferring this risk to the firm's procurement

department for successful handling of this task. The project manager has to prioritize all the

identified risks despite assigning them to various parties for mitigation. This comes after a risk

exposure for the identified risks has been calculated including the probability of the risk

occurring. Risk avoidance, as well as risk mitigation strategies, follows to make sure that each of

the identified risks is favorably handled (Wideman, 2013).

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List and describe the most common areas of the project where risks can originate.

The core project areas where risks can arise includes the following;

 Project Scope Management. This includes the business requirements for the project as

well as the project scope definition. The quality of the project estimates with its

dependencies are a critical area where project risks can result.

 Project Time Management. This involves changing project priorities, project work as well

as project schedule. Change in any of this during the life of a project can bring about

critical risks in the project.

 Project cost or budget. This involves the overall project funding. A wrong estimate of the

project budget can be the cause of many project risks preventing further implementation.

Other than wrong project budget estimate, expansion of the project scope can result in

some cost risks that may lead to a delay in project delivery or even incomplete closing of

the project (Wideman, 2013).

 Project quality management. This involves customizations, data migrations, project

documentation as well as training, project quality as well as testing. This can be seen

where there is an incorrect application of project process tailoring as well as deviation

guidelines, and where new employees are assigned roles to the project who have no

training in quality processes as well as procedures that the company has adopted.

 Project resource management. This is a critical area that can lead to many project risks

altogether. It involves issues such as lack of enough project resources, organization,

availability of the project team, project staff turnover, necessary skills as well as

technology issues (Risk management, 2014). This can highly depend on factors such as
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the project schedule, project staff, available budget and other necessary facilities. Any

improper management of these will result in project resource risks preventing proper

implementation.

Types of risk in each area.

 Project Scope Management.

 An enormous, vague and complex scope is a significant project risk. This will need

more time, increased resources and very highly experienced staff to successfully

handle the project which may lead to the project cost being more that the firm value.

 Changing scope is another project risk. This will involve the new assignment of

project roles, increased time, etc. extending budget and project delivery.

 Project Time Management.

 Over-optimistic deadlines. The unjustifiable time frame that’s hard to meet can be a

significant threat to project implementation.

 Inaccurate or even under-estimated project work. Under-estimated project work will

eventually push on the project budget bringing critical issues with project resources.

This can lead to incomplete termination of the project.

 Project cost or budget

 Inaccurate cost estimate. The wrong budget leads to cost risks such as project being

under-budget or budget overestimated affecting successful project implementation.

 Funding cuts. Sometimes due to unavoidable circumstances, the project cost may

require some reduction affecting successful completion.

 Project quality management.

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 Unmet quality standards. The project my need professional experiences in some areas

that are hard to get hence making some functionalities fail.

 Current data being inadequate. This data may be difficult to convert into the format

needed by the new system providing some system failures.

 Project resource management.

 Lack of enough resources. Where project resources are not available when needed,

this brings a critical issue, and the project cannot proceed unless the required

resources are availed.

 Lack of required skill set. Sometimes the necessary project skills may not be available

preventing successful completion of the project.

In the project you discussed in Week One, what were the risks and how were they handled?

In part one, I discussed my idea to come up with an animal modeling firm, i.e. pets that I referred

to as the animal kingdom that aimed at taking care of the animals in my society that is highly

mistreated. Although this could not be a purely new business within this area since there exist

some other animal kingdoms within reach but which has not been able to offer the services, I

intended to ensure that all animals are happy. The business would, therefore, be of its own, and

few risks were observed (FROEHLICH, HODGES, PILCH, & PEERCY, 2014).

One was a lack of animals to model in my new kingdom. A stiff competition was prevalent but

due to the kind of services that my kingdom was providing to the animal, more and more people

brought their pets to us to model them. We are gotten ourselves several sponsors who agreed to

work with us.

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Another risk that I though could affect my business involved lacking people who want our pets.

People could fail to come for our ready-made pet even after carefully taking our time to model

them. Although this never happened since people were amazed by our pets which despite being

well behaved, groomed and treated they could also assist in house chores.

Competition from the already existing kingdoms never affected us to the extent that we thought

since we had enough staff to take care of the animals in all manners. Our end product was highly

appreciated, and we received massive support from the society (FROEHLICH, HODGES,

PILCH, & PEERCY, 2014).

Should they have been handled differently?

If we lacked animals to model from our society, we could have migrated to the surrounding areas

to look for animals to model. If people never came for our shaped pets, then we could have

considered lowering our costs to make the pets affordable.

Conclusion

Each project has its successes and weaknesses with several risks associated with it. Its, therefore,

necessary to have a risk management and response plan for your project for successful

implementation after that. A risk management plan established several risks that could occur

during implementation of the project and the necessary mitigation strategies when the risk

occurs. The paper has discussed on the overall issue of risk management mainly on risk response

planning considering the role of a risk response plan, the issue of risk owners and how the

project leader should appoint risk owners, possible areas in a project where risks mainly

originate from as well as some types of risks in each category and end with a discussion of the
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risks that were prevalent in my week one project and how they were handled. About four

academic resources were used while conducting this research.

REFERENCES

Abkowitz, M. D. (2015). Operational risk management: a case study approach to effective

planning and response. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons. https://www.wiley.com/en-

us/Operational+Risk+Management

%3A+A+Case+Study+Approach+to+Effective+Planning+and+Response+-p-9780470256985

Risk management. (2014). Sydney, NSW: Standards Australia International, Ltd.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814059643/pdf?

md5=c852015afe15ae888845e4399c7c8d3c&pid=1-s2.0-S1877042814059643-main.pdf

Wideman, R. M. (2013). Project and program risk management: a guide to managing project

risks and opportunities. Drexel Hill, PA: Project Management Institute.

https://www.amazon.com/Project-Program-Risk-Management-Opportunities/dp/B01A0CVO2K

FROEHLICH, G. K., HODGES, A. L., PILCH, M., & PEERCY, D. E. (2014). Risk Management

Plan. Washington, D.C: Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S.

https://www.coursehero.com/file/p5t5tst/The-business-would-therefore-be-of-its-own-and-few-

risks-were-observed/