Risk Criticaility

We've all been down the risk ceremony path: where risk management starts with a 'workshop', descends into a matrix, then disappears.

Risk has a number of dimensions and Shenhar's book is a great start to thinking about risk in an organised manner; after Shenhar risk should be assesed in terms of the vulnerability of dependencies to failure events (and failure modes become important) on a probabilistic basis. These should then be assessed for affect on schedule, investment and performance to produce actions that will mitigate if not avoid the risk.

You probably know the near-pointless and potentially misleading 'matrix' that both Eight to Late and Cox bubble prick.

The outcome of basing project management on a mature understanding of risk should be the criticality of events to completion, budget or technical performance. This then drives mitigating actions: abatement and avoidance, or if minor, ignoring (or buffering in schedule or budget).