How to Prioritize Risks in Project Management

When working in project management, it’s important to prioritize risks. Not only can this help you continue with your project, but you’ll also be able to have preparation for risks that might come up in the future. One person, Brian Setencich, has quite a bit of experience in prioritizing risks in project management and this article is going to look at some things you can do to prioritize.

Identify Risks

The first thing you want to do is identify all of the risks you have. This will help you see exactly what you’re dealing with. This is extremely helpful because people might not realize how many risks their looking at until they actually write them down. Identifying the risks will also help you have a smaller chance of completely forgetting risks. It might not be such a big deal for smaller risks, but forgetting risks that can have a huge impact can be very serious. It’ll keep everything organized and you’ll be able to look back whenever you need to.

Define Risks

Next, you’ll want to define each of the risks. This goes a little more in depth than just identifying them. When you’re defining risks, you want to write down everything about them. This includes when they first came up, where they came from and what exactly they are. By doing this, you’ll have a complete understanding of every risk and you’ll know all the information about it. This can help you figure out which risks need to be dealt with as soon as possible and what kind of plan needs to be made to tackle it.

Weigh the Impact

Once you’ve identified and defined each of the risks, the next thing you’ll want to do is weigh the impact of each one. Not only do you want to weigh the impact of dealing with the risk immediately, but you also want to see what the impact would be if you let it go for a little while. Doing this will let you figure out which risks will have a bigger impact if you don’t deal with them and you’ll be able to easily pick out which risks will have the worst consequences.

Write Out Plans

The next step is to write out plans for each risk. Now that you know what the impact of the risks are, you need to write out at least one plan for each. While it’s fine to do one plan, having multiple for each risk can give you a little more leeway. Multiple plans will let you see which one is the best approach and see which one is going to get the risk resolved the best. Being able to make plans for the risks will help you have a clear plan of attack.

Start with the Biggest Impact

The final step is to look at the risks that have the biggest impact and work towards getting them resolved. The ones with a lower impact can be put on the back burner at first, but they will need to be dealt with eventually. The goal is to get every risk figured out and dealt with, but the more serious ones need to come first. The more serious ones can literally make or break your entire project!

Doing these things can help you figure out which priorities need to be handled first and which ones can wait. Over time, you’ll be able to easily identify risks and their priorities, just like Brian Setencich. Remember, it’s going to take some practice, but you’ll figure it out in no time!

Author Bio: Douglas Pitassi is a freelance writer and small business blogger.

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