How often should risk management workshops be run?
We have to qualify the answer, as
every project differs in size, time and degree of criticality. For example, if
you were soon to be undergoing major surgery, you would hope that your surgical
team would be reviewing / monitoring risks fairly regularly!
Luckily, most commercial IT projects don't have
quite the same level of risk, or potential impact (though more than one
project manager has been threatened with death should the project fail!)
A thorough
risk management workshop must be completed early in the project.
How often reviews are undertaken will
obviously be a factor of the length of the project, the potential impact of
the risks, and the number of risks identified.
However, undertaking reviews too often can add
to the project workload unnecessarily, and can de-motivate staff, thus
reducing the effectiveness of the task.
Undertaking reviews too infrequently renders
the process pointless, as the threat to the project could become a reality
before the team has time to take corrective action.
On an average / large business project, start
with eight weeks between reviews. Increase the frequency if the number
or severity of identified risks is unusually high.