Many projects fail within organizations, and this is often due to a lack of risk management. Of course, there's no such thing as zero risk, and your project may not turn out quite as you'd hoped. On the other hand, by adopting a proactive attitude, you can avoid navigating by sight. We explain everything in this article.
The main factors of uncertainty in project management
Today's businesses operate in a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) environment: accentuated by the COVID crisis, this constantly changing environment is often complex, unpredictable, and therefore generates risk!
To minimize them, the first thing to do is to identify "risk-generating" events. Here are the main risk factors in project management:
- Human risk: interpersonal conflicts, resistance to change, lack of skills or absenteeism.
- Time risk: delays by subcontractors or suppliers, poor estimates of deadlines.
- Technical risk: unsuitable equipment, breakdowns, errors, technological developments.
- Legal risk: changes in legislation, regulations to be complied with.
- Financial risk: lack of budget, expenses higher than estimated.
- Organizational risk: political or economic changes.
GOOD TO KNOW
To be as exhaustive as possible, don't hesitate to brainstorm with your project teams. Look at projects already carried out within the company. What are the most common risks encountered? You'll be able to refine your list.
Agile project management: an asset for resilience
As you can see, the first thing to do is to identify and prioritize risks, in order to minimize them.
Next, the challenge is to adopt an agile approach to improve project resilience in the face of uncertainty. This practice encourages flexibility, collaboration and rapid response to change. Agile methods such as Scrum or Kanban are often used to put these principles into practice.
Agile leaders develop a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement: this is crucial for responding quickly and adapting in uncertain environments. Discover the qualities of an agile leader.
Agile leadership
Strategic design: tools and methods
Strategic design is a discipline that fuses the principles of design thinking with strategic planning. It offers an innovative approach to project risk management.
This approach is based on foresight and rapid experimentation cycles. This makes it easier to identify factors of uncertainty, assess their risks and imagine several possible scenarios.
As a reminder, here is the design thinking method used in project management:
1. User research through interviews, surveys and observations.
2. Ideation to generate creative ideas and consider several risk scenarios.
3. Prototyping, to test the idea quickly and cost-effectively.
4. Testing and iterations to gather feedback and improve the product or service.
5. Visualization to clarify areas of risk and opportunity.
6. Co-creation workshops to integrate change.
7. Continuous feedback to adapt to change.
Focused on people (and more specifically on the needs of the "user") and taking full account of the project environment, strategic design is an excellent tool for reducing risk. Thanks to this method, project managers are better equipped to face challenges and uncertainties.
Interested in design thinking? Discover our program.
The solution: foster a proactive risk management culture
To avoid the costly consequences of an unforeseen event, you need to make your staff aware of the importance of risk management. The objective? Instill a strong sense of awareness and responsibility in your team from the outset.
Here are a few tips for implementing this risk management culture:
- Reassure stakeholders: to reinforce the team's trust and commitment to the project, communicate! You need to inform stakeholders of identified risks and mitigation strategies.
- Anticipate team composition: take the time to compose a team with complementary skills, to better navigate through the challenges.
- Instill resilience in team members: training is at the heart of project management. Offer training in stress management, design thinking or resilience in project management.
Far from being anecdotal, project risk management is not an option. By cultivating agile leadership and adopting a proactive approach, companies will be better equipped to minimize uncertainties and manage their projects.
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