"Managing risk in practice" workshop

Okay, let's have a look at
risk management in practice

And what I want to do
is to start with some basic concepts

then focus on two difficult areas
in the risk process

So, I guess if I asked you
to define the word 'risk'

you would have some ideas
of what it meant

We might not have a formal definition
that we could quote,

but we all have something in our minds
when we hear the word 'risk'

This is what we think,
and maybe you think of things like this

Maybe you feel like this little guy,
facing some big ugly challenge

that you know is just going to
squash you flat.

Maybe you feel like this guy.

This is a real job in North Korea,

and his job is to hold the target
for other people to shoot at

Sometimes project managers
have the target here

We feel like everybody is shooting at us
in our job

Or maybe you just know there's something
nasty out there, waiting to get you

And maybe that's what you think of
when you think of the word 'risk'

Well that's partly true
but it's not the whole truth.

Risk is not the same
as uncertainty.

Risk is related to uncertainty
but they're different.

So all risks are uncertain
but not all uncertainties are risks.

If you have a risk register
or a risk list,

you don't have a million items in it,
or you shouldn't.

You don't even probably have
a thousand items in it,

you have a smaller number.

Although there are millions
of uncertainties in the world.

So how do we decide which uncertainties
we're going to call 'risk'?

And write them down
and put them in our risk register

and decide to do something about them.

Clearly 'risk' is a subset
of uncertainties, but which subset?

How do you know?

I think it's very simple to separate
risk and uncertainty.

And I used 3 English words,

these words here,
'risk is uncertainty that matters."

Because most of the
uncertainties in the world don't matter.

We don't care if it's going to rain
in London tomorrow afternoon.

It might, it might not,
it's irrelevant, it doesn't matter.

We don't care what the
exchange rate will be

if it's between the Russian Ruble
and the Chinese Yen in 2020.

It doesn't matter to us.

But there are things on our projects,

and things in our families,

and things in our country,

which are uncertain which do matter to us.

If it's an uncertainty that matters,
it's a risk.

So here's another question,
how do you know what matters?

In your projects,
what are the things that matter?

The things that matter in our projects
are our objectives.

So we must always connect uncertainty
with objectives,

in order to find the risks.

And if we look at
some definitions of risk,

this is the ISO standard that I mentioned,

it connects those words very simply.

Risk is the effect of uncertainty
on objectives.

And we might look at another definition
from the UK,

from our association
with project management,

it says the same thing that risk
is an uncertain event

or a set of circumstances,
which is uncertain,

but it matters because should it occur,

it will have an effect on achievement of objectives.

Uncertainty that matters.

So we should be looking
in our risk register for two things.

Is it uncertain? We don't want
problems in our risk register.

We don't want issues in the risk register.

We don't want constraints or requirements.

These things are certain,
what we want are uncertainties,

something that might happen
or might not happen.

But the other important question for our
risk register is

does it matter?

Which objective would be effective
if this thing happened?

And then when we want to see
how big the risk is,

we can ask those two questions:

how uncertain is it,

and how much does it matter?

And that will tell us how big the risk is.

So, this idea of uncertainty that matters

then develops into something which is useful

by linking uncertainty to our objectives.

So, we have two dimensions of ‘risk,’

we have an uncertainty dimension and we

have a dimension that
affects our objectives

In projects, we call
this probability and impact,

We could call them other things,

there are other English

words we could use,
but these

are the ones,
most often, we use.

And I would like to ask you with
this picture of the mouse.

What effect matters to the mouse?

So first of all, clearly,
he is in a uncertain situation here.

And he's seen some risks.

His objective is to get the cheese
and stay alive.

And so, one of the risks he has
identified is a bad thing

that might happen,
he might be killed or injured.

And so, he has been a
good project manager,

he has put his little helmet on,
and he is preparing

so that it doesn't happen to him.
So, he doesn't get killed or injured.

Very good.

And there are things in our projects,
that if they happened

would kill or injure us.

They would waste time,

waste money, damage reputation,

destroy performance,

maybe even injure real people.

And as project managers we have to
see those things and stop them happening.

Protect ourselves in advance.

Avoid them.

Are there any other uncertainties
that matter for the mouse?

Well there is...

the cheese.

There's an uncertainty here which
matters a great deal.

Will I get the cheese out of the trap?

He might, or he might not.

And if he doesn't get the
cheese out of the trap, he's failed

So he has two uncertainties to manage,

one of them is bad - he might be killed
or injured -

the other is good - he might
get the cheese.

And what he has to do,

what he has to do is to manage both
of these at the same time.

And as project managers, we have to
do the same thing.

And also we have to do it in the
best possible way -

sometimes there's a better way to get the
cheese without being killed or injured.

In our projects we have to stop the
bad things happening,

but we also have to get the cheese out
of our projects.

So what does 'cheese' mean,
in your project?

What is the 'cheese' in your project?

'Cheese' means value.

'Cheese' means benefits.

'Cheese' means products and
services that people want and need.

'Cheese' means customer satisfaction.

'Cheese' is the good stuff that we're
trying to get out of our difficult projects.

And if we don't do anything bad -

we don't waste time, we don't
waste money, we don't damage reputation -

but we don't create value,

we've failed.

If the mouse didn't die but he didn't
get the cheese, he failed.

If we create benefits, but we waste time
and waste money and destroy reputation,

we've failed.

And if the mouse gets the cheese
and he's killed,

he's failed.

So we have to do both of these things.

And when we think about risk
and think about impact,

there are two kinds of impact that matter.

Bad ones, and good ones.

Uncertainties that could hurt the project,

and uncertainties that
could help the project.

Both of these matter
and both of these need to be managed.

And we have another word for those.

So, here's the definition of risk from the
Project Management Institute, the PMI,

from the PMBok Guide.

It's the same as the others
that we've seen:

an uncertain event or condition,
that if it occurs, affects an objective.

But PMI knows about the mouse. PMI knows
about the cheese and the traps,

and has added three words
to the definition of risk here.

It's not the words 'cheese' and 'traps'.

It's the words 'positive or negative'.

What this tells us is that there
are good risks, as well as bad risks.

And we heard that in one of our
keynote speeches, earlier this morning.

In the uncertain situation that this
country faces going forward

with all the changes that their have been,
there are threats.

There are things that could go wrong.

And you need to see those
and address them.

But there are also opportunities.

Uncertain things that might happen
that could be good.

And we also need to see those things,

and to try and proactively
make them happen.

And that is equally true in our projects,

in our personal lives,

and also at the national level.

And I'll be talking about some of
those things later on this afternoon

So, PMI has this definition. The other
standards have something very similar.

The iso standard, at the bottom here,

says 'risk is the effect of
uncertainty on objectives.'

Note, the effect can be
positive or negative.

And the APM Association, for project
management in the UK says the same thing.

So we have this new idea,
that risk is a double-sided concept.

And it's the same impression,
the word you have for risk,

we mostly think of bad things.
But it could be used for good things,

as well. Isn't that right?

It's an uncertain word.