Risk Management in Project Scheduling
Projects are inherently risky: you’re doing something new, you’re working on something unique. Even if you’re in a role where you basically the same project for different customers, there is always something slightly different about it because of the stakeholders involved or the location. And that’s why risk management is so important when it comes to working out your project schedule.
Effective risk management can save time and effort in the long run because it improves your ability to see what might be coming and gives you a chance to do something about it. In this article, we’ll share some tips for making sure risk management in project scheduling is baked in. First up, making sure that risk identification happens at the right time.
Identifying risks early in the scheduling process
Start the project as you mean to go on with a focus on risk. There are lots of ways to identify risks early in the project scheduling process. For example:
- Past projects: Look back at the kinds of risks that impacted previous projects and see if any of those would be relevant to your current piece of work.
- Lessons learned: Look through lessons learned reports from past projects to identify risks that were not known and that caused problems. You can then actively manage these risks on your project so you don’t struggle with the same things.
- Brainstorming: Sit with the team and review all the things that might cause problems.
Take the time to identify potential problems, discuss them and log them so you can keep a focus on them throughout the project.
Creating contingency plans
Most stakeholders want their schedules to be super lean because of Parkinson’s law: work expands to fill the time. On some projects, like construction work, time is literally money, and a small delay can cause havoc for other parts of the build.
Buffer time can be built into the schedule for known and unknown risks to give the team a bit of contingency in case things go wrong. For example, if you’re construction project is taking place outdoors in the middle of winter, you might want to consider extra time for snow days or the risk of delays to your supply chain.
Contingency time is one way to mitigate risks, but you can also accept them – if the risk is not significant enough to be worth the effort to actively manage – or transfer them. Transference is normally in the form of insurance, or by moving the delivery activity (and therefore the risk) to a third party through contract terms.
Go through your risk log and work out the best management approach for each item that might cause you problems in the future. Allocate an owner who is best placed to action the steps required to reduce the impact and likelihood of the risk on your project schedule.
Monitoring and adjusting for risks during execution
During the execution phase of your project, you will identify new risks, but you’ll also be monitoring the existing risks. It’s not enough to simply kick off your mitigation plans and hope they work: you want to actively follow up to make sure the plans are having the desired effect. Check in with the owners regularly so that you can build confidence in the team that actions are being followed through.
Schedule tracking tools and enterprise project management tools can help you identify emerging risks by flagging impact to the critical path, using scenario-based planning techniques or by spotting where resources become a constraint for delivery. Keep an eye on what your reporting tools are telling you and take action accordingly. Adjust the schedule where necessary to respond to unforeseen delays and emerging risks by adding more time, changing the order of activities or reallocating resources in a more efficient way.
Soft skills in risk management
Creating and maintaining a project schedule involves a lot of conversation and discussion, so it’s important your soft skills are up to the job. Effective communication and leadership are crucial when managing schedule risks because you’ll be having some difficult conversations with task owners!
Risk also creates uncertainty: will this thing happen? If it does, how will it affect us and what are we going to do about it? Being able to lead the team through uncertainty and ensure stakeholder buy-in for changes is another skill worth cultivating.
Project scheduling is one of the main areas where risks make themselves known on projects. And when we focus on risk solely at the beginning of the project, we miss the opportunity to adjust the schedule, resources and plans throughout the project as risks evolve and emerge. Risk management in project scheduling is should be something you do throughout the delivery life cycle, and by taking an integrated approach – combining risk management conversations with your scheduling activities – you can better make sure the whole team is ready to respond should any problems arise further in the future.