“Keep these four things in mind when you’re incorporating risk management practices with agile teams:
- Use the short or small team risk evaluation workshops instead of the large planning session. These shorter sessions help to ingrain risk planning and thinking in the team. They also take less time and avoid the hassle of analyzing risk that might not occur once you start an iterative process.
- Always keep the risk register visible and available to everyone. Using SharePoint, Office 365 or a wiki can be an excellent approach. Just centralize the information and make that collaboration portal — whatever it is — available to the wider team and stakeholders.
- Working with agile teams is a dynamic process; in many cases, they’re self-organized and democratic. At Advisicon, we like to establish one member of the team in the “risk manager” role. That person takes responsibility for identifying and helping to prioritize risks, escalating risk steps, mitigation and contingency plans with the team and stakeholders.
- Don’t overthink risk ranking. In many cases, you can take a team vote or use an electronic tool to simply weigh and rate risks. This practice can help to subdue the loudest voices in the room and engage the team in the analysis instead of championing their favorite risk.
Regardless of the specifics of your projects and whether you’re using a waterfall or agile method, your team is sure to face some unforeseen or little expected issues during development. Preparing for these risks is essential for ensuring your project’s success and avoiding overhead.” – Tim Runcie, of Advisicon, a project, program and portfolio management company that specializes in technology implementations, application and workflow development, training and consulting. Excerpted from the article, “The Agile Project Manager: Your Guide to Risk Management” @ MPUG. click here to read the article in its entirety.
Excellent insight and well said! PMO Advisory offers courses throughout the year designed for project professionals interested in Portfolio (PfMP), Program (PgMP), Project (PMP & CAPM) Risk (PMI-RMP) Management, and Agile (PMI-ACP) certifications.
