PMGT5820 Chap.5 Risk Analysis and Project Resilience
Risk Analysis and Project Resilience
Risk management turns uncertainty into attention, ownership and readiness. This chapter uses cause-event-effect wording, distinguishes risks from realised issues, and evaluates probability-impact scoring without pretending it is a precise forecast. Response design targets causes, likelihood or consequences, while resilience adds tested capacity to absorb disruption, adapt and recover when prevention is not enough.
The cause-event-effect structure matters because it reveals different places to intervene. Removing a cause, reducing likelihood, limiting consequence, preparing a contingency and accelerating recovery are not the same decision. Scoring helps prioritise attention, but ordinal labels should not be treated as exact forecasts or added without regard to the chosen scale.
Ownership is divided between the person accountable for the exposure and the people completing response actions. Triggers convert monitoring into action. Residual and secondary risks remain visible after treatment, while resilience tests whether backup capacity is genuinely independent or shares the same supplier, technology, location or specialist dependency.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Risk statements linking cause, uncertain event and consequence
- 02
Threats, opportunities, issues and assumptions
- 03
Probability, impact, proximity, detectability and connectivity
- 04
Avoid, mitigate, transfer, accept and escalate responses
- 05
Risk owners, action owners, triggers and contingencies
- 06
Residual, secondary and common-mode exposure
- 07
Resilience through diversity, modularity and recovery practice
Worked example · free
Reduce a single-person delivery dependency
- +1State the cause, uncertain absence event and schedule or outage consequence.
- +1Rate exposure using evidence and the critical-path position.
- +1Mitigate through documentation, pairing and a rehearsed technical handover.
- +1Name the risk owner, action owner, trigger and contingency.
- +1Review residual risk and any secondary risk created by the treatment.
Key terms
- Risk event
- An uncertain occurrence that may affect one or more project objectives.
- Risk trigger
- An observable condition that activates review or a planned contingency.
- Residual risk
- Exposure remaining after the selected response has been implemented.
- Secondary risk
- A new exposure created directly by implementing a risk response.
Risk Analysis and Project Resilience FAQ
What makes a useful risk statement?
It separates an existing cause, an uncertain event and the consequence for a project objective. That wording exposes where prevention, mitigation, contingency or recovery can act. Vague labels such as supplier risk do not provide the same decision route.
How is a risk different from an issue?
A risk remains uncertain; an issue has already occurred and needs immediate management. One situation can contain both: a missed permit date is an issue, while the possibility that it will delay mobilisation is a continuing risk with future consequences.
What does resilience add to risk management?
Resilience is the capacity to absorb disruption, adapt and recover while preserving purpose. It complements prevention through genuinely independent options, cross-training, modularity, buffers and rehearsed contingencies. Each capacity should be tied to a specific disruption and tested.
Assessment move
Rewrite vague register entries into cause-event-effect statements and classify realised conditions as issues. For each response, point to the part of the chain it changes, then name the owner, trigger, contingency and residual risk. Stress-test supplier diversity and backup plans for common dependencies so apparent redundancy is not mistaken for real resilience.
Create a short risk register from one scenario and prohibit one-word entries such as weather, supplier or technology. Write each statement with an existing cause, an uncertain event and a consequence tied to scope, schedule, cost, quality, safety, acceptance or value. Mark any event that has already occurred as an issue and give it an immediate action owner.
Choose probability and impact ratings only after defining the scale, then add proximity, detectability or connectivity when those dimensions change priority. Avoid performing arithmetic that the scale cannot justify. For every high exposure, generate more than one response and state whether it acts on cause, likelihood, consequence or recovery.
Distinguish the risk owner from each action owner, specify an observable trigger and write the contingency that follows. Reassess exposure after the treatment and identify any new dependency the response creates. To study resilience, draw the disruption across prevention, absorption, adaptation and recovery. Challenge backup suppliers, duplicate systems and cross-trained staff for hidden common points of failure.
Finish with a review schedule based on trigger speed and decision lead time. This sequence makes the register a control tool rather than a static list prepared for reporting. Compare the chosen review rhythm with the fastest trigger so the governance cycle cannot discover a critical exposure only after response time has expired.
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