Chapter 7: Risk Management
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A key component of managing a project is the identification and management of project risks.
A risk is a potential threat to the success of the project. Most risks cannot be
avoided, but need to be managed. They need to be classified, recorded, and regularly reviewed to keep
them under control.
Every risk follows a life-cycle, as depicted by the following state transition diagram.
The meaning of each state is as follows:
- New means that the risk has just been created, but is not ready for anyone to work on.
- Submitted means that the risk has been submitted to the system, so that it can be worked on.
- Reviewed means that a user has reviewed the risk.
- Closed means that a user has closed the risk, because it is no longer a risk.
- Opened means that a user has re-opened a closed risk, because it was closed prematurely.
When you select the Risk Management node, a search screen is displayed. You can search for a risk
either by its ID, or a set of other search criteria. To search by ID, choose 'By ID' from the Search drop-down list and
enter the risk ID in the ID field.
Alternatively, select 'By Criteria' from the Search drop-down list. In this case, you can search using a
Risk Title, Project, Impact, Likelihood,
State, Review Cycle, or Raised By fields.
If you leave this blank, a wild-card search is performed, which will return all risks.
Press Find to perform your search. The search result is displayed in
the table below the search criteria.
Provided that you have the relevant permissions, you can:
- Clear your search criteria and result by pressing the Clear button.
- Create a new risk by pressing the New button.
- View the details of a risk by selecting its row in the table and pressing the Details
button, or simply double-clicking the row.
- Delete a risk by selecting its row and pressing the Delete button. You will be asked to
confirm this operation.
The Graphical View tab displays the search result as a pie chart.
The pie chart can be organized in terms of risk Impact, Likelihood, Review Cycle,
or State, as denoted by the View By drop-down list. You can view the risks represented by
each pie chart segment by clicking on that segment. You will be asked if you want those risks to be added to the
navigation tree.
When you create a risk or view the details of an existing risk, the risk is added to the navigation tree,
as a child of the Risk Management node.
The Risk tab displays risk summary information. If you have risk edit permission, you can
modify some of these fields. Fields specified as read-only are managed by the system.
- The Title field displays a descriptive summary for the risk.
- The Archived check box indicates whether the risk has been archived.
- The BU field displays the risk's business unit. When you create a new risk, this is automatically
set to the business unit you're in. This field is read-only, unless you're a user in the SysAdmin group and
the Project field is set to blank.
- The Project field displays the project to which the risk applies.
- The Impact field displays the degree to which the risk may impact the project.
- The Likelihood field displays the probability of risk impact.
- The State field displays the current state of the risk (read-only).
- The Review Cycle field displays the desired frequency for reviewing the risk.
- The Raised By field is automatically set to the user who originally created the risk (read-only).
- The Raised On field is automatically set to when the risk was created (read-only).
- The Description field is used to enter a full description of the risk.
After creating a new risk (and filling in the details), the only operation you can perform on it is to submit it.
To do this, press the Submit button. The risk changes state to Submitted.
To review a risk, press the Review button. A dialog is displayed for you to enter remarks.
Enter text to document the review and press the OK button.
A closed risk can be reopened by pressing the Reopen button. The risk changes state to Opened.
This should be done only in cases where the risk has been closed prematurely. Both Close
and Reopen buttons are enabled only for users with risk Close permission.
The Progress tab contains the time-stamped remarks entered by users during the life-time of a risk.
It summarizes how the risk has progressed to-date.
The History tab provides a history of a risk's state changes, in tabular format.
For each state change, the date, the user who actioned the change, the old state, the action, and the new
state, as well as any notes entered by the user are displayed. For long notes, select the history row to
see the full note in the text area below the table.
Whether a state change is recorded in this table or not, depends on your specified preferences in
System Options.
The Attachments tab displays a list of documents attached to the risk, as a table.
The most typical type of risk attachment is a screen dump that proves the existence of a defect.
For each attachment, its File Name and file Size (in bytes) are listed in
the table. When an attachment is opened for editing by a user, the username appears in the
Locked By column. When an attachment is opened for editing or viewing, the file is retrieved
from the database and written to the local disk. The local file's path is displayed in the Local Path column.
You can do the following operations:
- To attach a new document, press the Attach button. A file navigation dialog is displayed.
Navigate to the desired file and open it. The file is permanently attached to the project.
- To view an attachment, select its row and press the View button. A read-only
copy of the file is written to the disk and opened for viewing using the application associated with the file.
- To modify the contents of an attachment, select its row and press the Edit button.
A writable-copy of the file is written to the local disk and opened for editing using the application associated
with the file. After you've edited the file, close it, and press the Save button to save your
changes to the database, or press the Unlock button to ignore your changed.
- To detach an attachment, select its row and press the Detach button. The file is
removed from the database. However, any local copies are left untouched.
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