Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project [Hardcover]

Tom Kendrick PMP (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2003

Between time constraints, technical challenges, and limited resources, nearly all projects are risky. It stands to reason that project risk management is one of the most important areas making up the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK[registered]). "Identifying and Managing Project Risk" is an immensely practical guide that helps readers minimize the possibility of failure in critical projects by identifying every possible risk ...and then managing it effectively.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

"There’s a good reason project risk management is one of the most vital of the nine content areas of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (TM). Important projects tend to be time constrained, pose huge technical challenges, and suffer from a lack of adequate resources. It’s no wonder that project managers are increasingly focusing their attention on risk identification.

Identifying and Managing Project Risk is a practical guide to minimizing the possibility of failure in critical projects. The book takes readers step by step through every phase of a project, showing them how to consider the possible risks involved at every point in the process. Relevant figures and diagrams support the text and illustrate key scenarios. At the end of each chapter is an analysis of how the principles just discussed applied to a supreme example of what many once considered a truly impossible project: the building of the Panama Canal.

Packed with real-world information, this book is essential reading for any project manager seeking to complete projects smoothly and successfully."

From the Inside Flap

As a project manager, you know that complicated projects are inherently risky business. Between time constraints, technical challenges, and resource difficulties, things that can go wrong often do—which is why one of the most important parts of your job is considering the possible risks involved at every point in the process.

Fully updated and consistent with the very latest Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Identifying and Managing Project Risk takes you through every phase of a project, helping you guard against failure by improving and increasing your risk analysis capabilities.

The book outlines proven methods for project risk planning, drawing on real world situations and hundreds of examples—including what many once considered a truly impossible project, the Panama Canal—to demonstrate key ideas in the risk management process. You’ll learn how to use high level risk assessment tools, implement a complete system for monitoring and controlling projects, and properly document every possible consideration. The book contains sections on the different types of risk to consider when planning; how to identify key issues associated with project metrics; activity sequencing; Work Breakdown Structure (WBS); analysis of scale; and cost estimating and budgeting.

Identifying and Managing Project Risk outlines the essential concepts involved in project risk planning and provides indispensable details and advice on topics such as:

• -The benefits and uses of risk data
• -Setting limits and defining deliverables
• -Procurement planning and source selection
• -Constraint management and risk discovery
• -Quantitative and qualitative analysis
• -Project simulation and modeling
• And much more

Analyzing aspects such as available resources, project scope, and scheduling, this new edition also explores the growing area of Enterprise Risk Management as well as other important new developments in the field.

This valuable resource moves beyond risk management basics involving insurance, financial, and investment portfolio risk to examine areas like information technology, software engineering, product development, and other high tech fields, giving you a well-rounded understanding of what goes into making project risk identification a crucial element of project management strategy.

Your ability to identify and manage project risk is necessary for the smooth and successful completion of all projects, regardless of size, type, or scope. This book will help you eliminate surprises and transform risk into a variable you can manage and keep safely under control. Comprehensive and completely up-to-date, Identifying and Managing Project Risk helps you determine risk factors thoroughly and decisively…before a project gets derailed.

 

Tom Kendrick, PMP, is an internal project management consultant for Visa Inc. and the author of Results With­out Au­thority. He has more than 30 years of project management experience, 12 of which were spent as a part of the Hewlett-Packard Project Management Initiative. He lives in San Carlos, California.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 17 and up
  
• Hardcover: 354 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM (April 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814407617
• ISBN-13: 978-0814407615
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #823,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Kendrick is currently an independent consultant living near San Francisco, California. He was recently awarded the 2010 Project Management Institute (PMI) David I. Cleland Project Management Literature Award in October 2010 for "Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project."

Tom regularly conducts classes and presentations on program, project, and risk management for conferences, associations, and universities. Tom recently retired from Visa Inc. Previously, he spent 20 years with Hewlett Packard in its Project Management Initiative and in a variety of other project management roles. He has over 35 years of worldwide PM experience, including work for DuPont, General Electric, and as an independent consultant.

Tom has a BSEE from Princeton University, an MSEE from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a certified PMP and serves as an officer for both the PMI Silicon Valley Chapter and the Risk Management SIG.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for all project managers and sponsors, July 11, 2003

By 

Patrick Neal (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project (Hardcover)

This volume may be the best one I have ever read on the subject of risk in the project arena. Kendrick has captured the best of current practical thinking on project risk and how to identify and manage it. And the author has carefully linked theory and practice to the Project Management Institute's "Project Mangement Body of Knowledge." In addition this book is exceedingly well written and very readable (a rarity in this genre).
Kendrick approaches risk identification from the perspective of the project manager in the areas of scope (project deliverables and product), resources (people, materials, and money), and schedule (time). He addresses each area in a separate chapter with practical advice on how to identify and document potential risks. An aspect of these three chapters I particularly appreciate is the depth of information that allows the reader to address each area of risk at different levels. Kendrick does this by providing an array of analytical tools. For example in Chapter 4, "Identifying Project Schedule Risks," the reader could use the list of common schedule risks and probably account for 80% of the schedule risks for their project, or move to a deeper analysis of risks associated with delays, dependencies, and errors in estimation. In the area of estimation the reader is presented with an array of estimating techniques that can be used as appropriate to detect potential risks in estimation.
Chapter seven on "Quantifying and Analyzing Activity Risk" appears just in time. After reading the first six chapters the reader may throw up their hands and declare "I can't manage all of this!" As an experienced project manager, Kendrick gives us tools to help select the risks to manage. All potential risks on a project are not manageable or worth the time and effort to manage. This chapter gives sage advice on how to select the vital few.
A key element in Kendrick's approach is distinguishing what he calls "activity risk" from "project risk." It is easy for the project manager to focus on risks associated with various activities and forget the larger picture. In fact there may be times when the risks associated with each activity seem minor but when the project is viewed as a whole the project is very risky. Kendrick provides tools for quantifying and analyzing risk at the project level as well as a chapter on managing project level risk.
I end this review with three overall comments. First, pages 17-24 should be required reading for all senior managers and anyone who sponsors a project and there should be a test at the end. The biggest risk for too many projects is unknowing, unthinking, or uncaring managers who are driven by near term profits and stock prices. Second, readers should not be put off by Kendrick's inclusion of statistical and mathematical information. Such information comprises less than 5% of this book and it would be a shame to miss the other 95% due to a fear and loathing of numbers. Finally, if you can't find any other reason to read this gem, read it for the intriguing history of the building of the Panama Canal. If Kendrick ever decides to stop managing projects, he has a bright future as a writer of interesting history.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical Risk Management, April 9, 2003

By 

Al DeLucia (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project (Hardcover)

Reviewed by Al DeLucia
Director
Project Management Division
GSA, Philadelphia

Anyone who - like me -- has struggled to relate the abstract discussion of Risk Management in the PMBOK to actual project management practice will welcome this down-to-earth presentation. This book shows how to incorporate risk management into the planning of your project along the way - the entire way -- of the project development sequence.

Mr. Kendrick had many years of practical project management experience with Hewlett- Packard and headed their in-house project management training and consulting program. Over a period of 10 years, he trained hundreds of project managers at HP, in other organizations world-wide, and at the University of California at Berkeley and systematically collected information about the most significant risks they had encountered in their projects. The result is a database called PERIL (Project Experience Risk Information Library), that contains 222 projects sorted into risk categories based on type and impact. In this book, these results are integrated with the PMBOK processes of project development in a way that shows what project management is really all about.

Anecdotes from the construction of the Panama Canal are interestingly presented at the ends of the chapters. These describe how the concepts of each chapter were applied - or not - first by the French in their failed attempt to build the canal, and then by the Americans in their successful endeavor under the sponsorship of Teddy Roosevelt.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars In search of good books on managing project risks, June 2, 2008

By 

A customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project (Hardcover)

This book provides an overview on how to manage certain types of project risks (some risks are not covered, e.g. financial) and, implicitly, only IT projects and not other types of projects (e.g. construction). Like many books on this topic, the treatment is uneven. The strengths are its logical structure and clear exposition. I knocked off 2 stars because a) there is a disconnect between the text (mostly IT-related) and case study (building of Panama Canal), and b) neglect of contractual issues, the key instrument of risk management. This is the book for you to read if you have no idea about project risk management.