Proactive Risk Management : Controlling Uncertainty in Product Development [Paperback]

Preston G. Smith (Author), Guy M. Merritt (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1563272652 | ISBN-13: 978-1563272653 | Publication Date: June 17, 2002 | Edition: 1

Listed as one of the 30 Best Business Books of 2002 by Executive Book Summaries

Proactive Risk Management's unique approach provides a model of risk that is scalable to any size project or program and easily deployable into any product development or project management life cycle. It offers methods for identifying drivers (causes) of risks so you can manage root causes rather than the symptoms of risks.

Providing you with an appropriate quantification of the key factors of a risk allows you to prioritize those risks without introducing errors that render the numbers meaningless. This book stands apart from much of the literature on project risk management in its practical, easy-to-use, fact-based approach to managing all of the risks associated with a project. The depth of actual how-to information and techniques provided here is not available anywhere else.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Please note- This book has published and is available. It is listed as not published on amazon.com web site

About the Author

Preston G. Smith, founder and principal of New Product Dynamics, has been a product development consultant for over 18 years. As a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) Preston has consulted on new product development techniques and time to market over a wide variety of industries in twenty countries. His previous book, Developing Products in Half the Time, has become a classic for product developers during the past decade. He holds an engineering PhD from Stanford University.

Guy M. Merritt, is currently the Staff Program Manager at Tellabs in Ashburn, Virginia. He was a leading contributor to the development of Tellabs' project risk management program and has served as Tellabs' Staff Engineer for Software Quality Assurance.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Productivity Press; 1 edition (June 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563272652
• ISBN-13: 978-1563272653
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #378,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > Business & Investing > Skills > Office Automation

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and effective prescription for NPD risk!, September 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Proactive Risk Management : Controlling Uncertainty in Product Development (Paperback)

"Proactive Risk Management" is by far the clearest and most direct treatment I've found for managing risk within New Product Development projects. Preston Smith has done an excellent job of taking a complex topic (one which has recently become much more important in an unforgiving economic environment), distilling it down to a simple but elegantly powerful risk model, and embedding that model within a proven continuous risk management process.

I'm always delighted to read Smith's articles in the product development journals (e.g. PDMA JPIM, Research-Technology Management). He's hit the nail on the head with this book - his earlier treatments on risk pointed out the need for NPD risk management, but lacked the detail needed to tackle risk in a way that could be immediately implemented. He's now closed that gap, and NPD professionals will find immediate gain from his work.

The book is very well written and organized. The running example, as well as the more detailed case studies, provide the implementation examples that easily moves one from theory to practice. The examples of spreadsheets and risk maps are a snap to replicate, and they work. The graphics and charts are clear and to the point. Smith's direct in-the-trenches experience clearly shows - this is not a theoretical/academic treatment, but instead is an insightful distillation of a great deal of thought and trial reduced to concise practice. As the earlier reviewer points out, there's very little not to like here!

One of the biggest points of this book is that risk does not reside only within the technical realm, but must be managed across functions (marketing, manufacturing, support, etc...) and over the complete span of the development and delivery effort. This holistic view provides the framework to true product success.

(The reviewer is currently corporate NPD manager at a major semiconductor firm, previously managed Technology Strategy at a Fortune 100 company, and is PDMA NPDP certified.)

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear and Informative, June 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Proactive Risk Management : Controlling Uncertainty in Product Development (Paperback)

Over the years, I have encountered nearly every kind of risk in software projects. I found the suggestions in this book for risk analysis and risk management to be simple, clear, and actionable.

If you're a project manager or a team leader, you need to read this book or one very much like it. Otherwise, you're likely to lead a project without knowing or controlling its risks.

If you are not in a leadership position, use the concepts in this book to evaluate your leaders. That way, you can find out early how things are likely to turn out.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best book on prject management risk analysis, May 1, 2003

By 

J. Sloane "Jimblob" (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Proactive Risk Management : Controlling Uncertainty in Product Development (Paperback)

I found this book to be the most approachable, and day to day useful text on risk, currrently available. The authors make it easy to understand, provide a progressive example that builds on the model presented, and they provide a useful risk management toolkit.
As a trainer, I found the concepts easy to get across to students. They were also able to retain these concepts because they made so much sense.
Buy it!