Developing Realistic Risk Responses

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Realistic risk responsesProject managers often fall short with planning risk responses, because the risk responses aren’t realistic or can’t be acted on. Here’s a checklist to ensure risk responses are realistic and will help the project succeed. 

  • Do key stakeholders understand the risk response? Risk responses must be written using vocabulary familiar to a broad set of stakeholders. Avoid jargon or terms familiar only to technical teams. Schedule open meetings about risks and planned responses, allowing stakeholders to ask questions and provide input. This will both improve understanding and increase buy-in.
  • Do responses Include clear and agreed-upon execution conditions? A realistic risk response must have a well-defined trigger point or conditions for activation. This ensures that the response is implemented in circumstances agreed to by relevant stakeholders. For example, if a risk involves potential supply chain disruptions, the response might be triggered when lead times exceed a certain threshold. With clearly defined execution points, the project team can act proactively and decisively. 
  • Is the funding source identified? Risk responses must include details on where the funding is coming from, such as a contingency budget, a specific risk management fund, or an agreement to reallocate resources from other project areas. There needs to be a pre-defined process for releasing those funds as well. 
  • Does the response align with the project goal and scope?  If a risk response significantly alters the project’s direction, it isn’t realistic. Responses need to align with and support the project goal. For example, if a project to develop a new software product has an objective to build in-house expertise, a risk response to outsource core development work is detrimental.
  • Do responses include measurable outcomes and targets? Measurable outcomes with a defined target help the project team assess the effectiveness of the response and adjust if needed. Examples of measurable outcomes might include a reduced probability of risk occurrence, decreased potential impact, or improved project KPIs. 
  • Do complex risk responses have a mini-implementation plan? This plan outlines the steps required to execute the response, assign responsibilities, and set timelines. Think of it as a project within a project. For instance, if a risk response involves switching to an alternative supplier, the mini plan might include steps for vendor evaluation, contract negotiation, and transition of operations. This level of detail ensures that complex responses are actionable.

Of course, you need other information about risk responses: who owns the risk, how it impacts the project, and so on. Try creating a risk response template that includes basic 411 about the response along with these checklist items.

For more about risk responses, check out Bob McGannon’s Project Management Foundations: Risk course.

 

My course Project Management Foundations was #2 in LinkedIn Learning’s Most Popular courses of 2024. Watch it for free with this link!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Up

Many people believe you need to be an extrovert to be successful as a project manager. But introverts bring valuable strengths like strategic thinking, deep listening, thoughtful communication, and more. Bonnie Biafore and Anna Lung’aho Anderson both get questions from people who are scared of project management because they’re introverts. Join us for Office Hours on Friday, February 28, 2025 at 11am MT/12pm CT, we’ll talk about how introverted project managers can leverage their strengths, overcome their challenges, and at the same time develop confidence in leadership, stakeholder engagement, and other people skills. Click here to join!

 

My updated version of Agile Project Management with Microsoft Project has been published! Click here to watch.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 86,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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How to Ensure Stakeholder Buy-In

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stakeholder buy-inFor a project to be successful, stakeholders must adopt the products and/or processes the project delivers. Here are four tips to ensure stakeholders buy into and adopt project outcomes.

  • Share the project vision and have stakeholders set project goals. Stakeholders will see the project as relevant only when 1) they understand its benefits and 2) it meets their goals relative to those benefits. Some project managers hesitate to let stakeholders set project goals, fearing that they won’t be realistic. Deep conversations about goals, led by the stakeholders, are the best way to develop commonly understood and agreed-to project objectives. If you can’t reach alignment on project goals, try again. If stakeholders still can’t reach agreement, don’t launch the project.
  • Incorporate stakeholder feedback. Stakeholders will always believe they are “right” and the project needs changes unless they see their input incorporated into project plans or facts convince them otherwise. Making the effort to do this takes time and patience and is crucial for project success.
  • Give stakeholders project decision-making authority. Stakeholders with decision-making authority beyond just approving requirements are more likely to buy into project solutions. Like project goals, there are aspects of a project that stakeholders won’t accept unless their expectations are met. So, what kind of decision-making can you delegate to stakeholders? Consider delegating decisions about testing procedures, acceptable testing outcomes, and implementation schedules.
  • Before starting a project, ask stakeholders to describe project benefits in their own words. Stakeholders must confirm project definition documents, such as a scope statement or project charter. The best way to get those documents right is to ask stakeholders to describe, in their own words, what they think the project’s intent and outcomes are, as well as their vision of the process the project will take to succeed. This process can include agile versus waterfall, specific specialized resources that are needed, and how business-as-usual workload will be managed as team members work on the project. Hold conversations and adjust documents when stakeholder descriptions differ from the project documentation. If the stakeholders offer accurate descriptions but use different vocabulary, incorporate their language into the project documentation to avoid misinterpretations as the project progresses.

Do these tactics make you nervous? (They do for me.) Take some time to think about the time you’ll need to perform these activities, how you would talk to stakeholders, and how you would manage the risks you envision. Then, think about what your days as a project manager would be like if you didn’t have stakeholder buy-in. It’s better to address these potential obstacles early on and work them out.

For more about working with stakeholders, check out Natasha Kasimtseva’s Managing Project Stakeholders course.

 

 

My course Project Management Foundations was #2 in LinkedIn Learning’s Most Popular courses of 2024. Watch it for free with this link!

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Up

My updated version of Agile Project Management with Microsoft Project has been published! Click here to watch.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 85,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Next Level Critical Path Management

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critical path managementThe critical path is the longest sequence of tasks in a project. Delays on the critical path will also delay project completion. To keep your project schedule on track, it’s important to keep an eye on near-critical paths and other path changes (and communicate them to stakeholders).

  • Near-critical paths. Let’s say a project’s critical path is 42 days. But the duration of another path is 44 days. With only 2 days of leeway (that is, slack) on this second path, even a short delay could change which path is critical. That’s why the second path is considered a near-critical path. Managing near-critical paths is important because they can become the critical path with a minor delay. Tell management about any near-critical paths, because scope, priority, or other changes that they might want to make could impact the project more than they realize.
  • Path changes due to risk responses. Risk plans identify risks and the actions to take to respond if a risk comes to fruition. These actions could affect pathways through the schedule, changing the critical path duration, switching to a new critical path, or creating a new near-critical path. Communicating these potential changes to management demonstrates your control of the project and attention regarding the project’s deadlines. For example, if a product purchased from a vendor could be delayed, the risk mitigation actions might be negotiating and purchasing a product from an alternate vendor. Negotiating, procuring, receiving, and testing the alternate product could add tasks to your plan that could result in a new critical path or near-critical paths. Those tasks could also eat into schedule contingency, which should also be communicated to management.
  • Path changes from unexpected resource changes. Losing project resources is a common risk. Significant changes will occur if the project has to absorb resource changes beyond what’s addressed in the risk plan. Resource changes can affect the schedule in many ways. You need to analyze potential changes to critical and near-critical paths in enough detail so that management can make informed decisions about the resource changes and their impact. The schedule needs detail, including who is assigned to each task, task work and duration estimates, and the work and duration changes that would occur if a less-skilled person takes over a task.
  • Path changes from changes to scope, business direction, or strategy. Changes to the project scope, business direction, or strategies can seem straightforward, but they can complicate project management. A colleague was managing a project that had to accommodate two new business processes considered crucial to the growth of the sponsoring business. On the surface, validating the new processes in the project’s new computer system deliverables seemed straightforward. In reality, the validation effort required additional technical and business skills, which added 3 weeks to the critical path and created two new near-critical paths. These changes meant project management expanded to scrutinizing three times as many tasks (counting the critical and near-critical path tasks) as before.

Take a moment now to check whether your current project schedule has near-critical paths. If so, which additional tasks do you need to watch and what steps do you need to take?

 

For more about project schedules, check out my Project Management Foundations: Schedules course.

 

My course Project Management Foundations was #2 in LinkedIn Learning’s Most Popular courses of 2024. Watch it for free with this link!

 

 

 

Coming Up

My updated version of Agile Project Management with Microsoft Project has been published! Click here to watch.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 85,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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How’s the new team member working out?

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Assessing a new team member graphic

When you add a new member to your project team, it’s a good idea to evaluate their performance so you can address any negative impacts quickly. Here are ways to monitor project and team member performance after a personnel change. 

  • Examine deliverables closely. If possible, give the new team member an opportunity to produce an early deliverable and then review it carefully. You can assess the person’s skills, their understanding of their role in the project, and their ability to work within the team. Note: Restructuring the person’s deliverables to provide for an early review isn’t as efficient as taking a straight path to the required results. However, getting an early indicator of whether the new team member will satisfy project needs is usually worth it. 
  • Watch team member interactions. New team members create a new team dynamic. Watch how other team members act and communicate with the new person. Are they respected and are their ideas considered valid? Watch for new dynamics during team meetings that could lead to problems. If any hiccups occur, don’t hesitate to act and work with the new person.
  • Evaluate performance for potential skill gaps. Validating the team member’s skills is for determining whether the new team member is acceptable. Compare the skills inventory for the person’s role to what others observe. If you find a skill gap, mentor the person or arrange for training to close the gap.
  • Observe stakeholder interactions and confidence levels. Stakeholders outside the project team can also provide impressions on whether a new team member is suitable. Does the new team member communicate in a way these outside stakeholders understand? Do they install confidence? If not, work with the person to improve their communication (assuming their skills are sufficient for their role).

The actions you can take to address someone’s shortfalls depend on your authority as project manager. If your efforts don’t correct those shortfalls, the new team member might not be the right fit for the project. If you run into trouble trying to replace that person, you might be able to persuade management by explaining the effects this person could have on the project, such as delivery delays, additional cost, and so on. 

I talked about how to handle a team member change in this article from June 2022.

For more about working with teams, check out Daniel Stanton’s Project Management Foundations: Teams course.

 

 

My course Project Management Foundations was #2 in LinkedIn Learning’s Most Popular courses of 2024. Watch it for free with this link!

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Up

My updated version of Agile Project Management with Microsoft Project will be published soon! Look for the announcement when it publishes.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 84,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Learning from Resistance to Change

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Learning from change resistance

Resistance to change is a frustrating and common aspect of project management. Resisting takes energy, which means stakeholders care enough about the project to expend that energy. Behind the pushback and complaints could be perspectives crucial to project success. Here’s what you can learn and utilize from stakeholders’ resistance to change.

  • The root cause of the resistance. Most resistance to change comes from an individual’s or group’s experience. The root cause of their concern can identify project risks and provide a different perspective on stakeholders’ capabilities. Resistance often results from a lack of confidence or—sometimes, just the opposite. Stakeholders might believe they have untapped knowledge and experiences—and often, they do. Understanding those capabilities helps a PM integrate them to improve project outcomes. Consider carefully these root causes, as trivial or far-fetched as it might sometimes seem. Adjusting plans or compensating for those experiences can be the difference between project success and failure. 
  • Knowledge gaps. Change resistance can be triggered by ignorance or a misconception about the project and its planned outcomes. For example, stakeholders might perceive a project as eliminating effective processes when, in truth, it will enhance those processes. That misconception can arise from rumors or a poorly written scope statement. When you discover knowledge gaps, it’s important to revise your communication plan to fill in those gaps and revisit the project communication already distributed. The project won’t progress if stakeholders don’t have accurate and complete information about the project intent and approach.
  • Unknown sub-cultures or informal groups. Organizational leaders often don’t appear on the managerial org chart. Their followers might span several departments. Frequently, these leaders support a sub-culture within the organization. For example, mechanics within a manufacturing company could have developed their own approaches and expectations regarding shifts and manufacturing lines. They often think as one, so a leader opposed to a project could sway numerous stakeholders. Recognizing the presence of these informal groups and accounting for their way of thinking and influencing can address their resistance to change. Watch and listen in meetings. To identify these groups, note the people who eat lunch or leave work together and talk with others to identify these groups and their leaders.
  • Unanticipated power shifts. A new and reasonable-looking business process initiated by the project might create an unanticipated power shift. Alternatively, key stakeholders may perceive one. For example, a project outcome automates a finance process. While it seems straightforward, finance and travel team members might resist this change, because they have been controlling travel costs by working together informally. The automation might eliminate their ability to collaborate and reduce costs – or appear to them that they will lose the power to control costs. In this example, the solution to their resistance is to work with them on how travel approval decisions will be made. 
  • Project definition or plan improvement options. Project resistance could arise due to a missing opportunity. For example, stakeholders might see a weakness or inefficiency in a business process that isn’t recognized by people who don’t use those processes daily. Stakeholders would resist a project that looks to improve that business process but overlooks the issue with inefficiency. Talk to the resisters to identify the nature of resistance. Ask if something is missing from the project definition or project management approach that will help the business, help the project, eliminate a risk, and so on. 

For more about change management, check out Claudine Peet’s Change Management for Projects course.

 

 

My course Project Management Foundations was #2 in LinkedIn Learning’s Most Popular courses of 2024. Watch it for free with this link!

 

 

 

 

Coming Up

My updated version of Agile Project Management with Microsoft Project will be published soon! Look for the announcement when it publishes.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 84,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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Simulating Success: Transforming Project Management Training with Games

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Would you like to expand your project management skills and experience or that of the project managers in your organization, but you’re concerned about the impact of inexperienced people working on live projects? I had the chance to see the PMzone Digital Simulation Board Game in action and was impressed with its approach and realism. Here’s an introduction to the tool from PMzone (and a 50% off coupon code).

Simulators have become essential tools for professional training, offering a safe and controlled environment to develop skills, gain experience and insights, test strategies, and prepare for real-world challenges — without the risks associated with practicing in real life (such as pilots rehearsing takeoffs and landings, and medical staff practicing emergency procedures). Despite the complexity of project management and the significant consequences of failed projects, project management simulators have been scarce.

PMzone Digital Simulation Board Game fills this critical gap, providing project managers with a practical, interactive platform to practice and refine key project management skills. Participants are tasked with planning and executing projects while managing budgets, balancing resource constraints, and making decisions in the face of uncertainty. This immersive approach helps both novice practitioners and experienced project managers experiment with strategies, analyze the outcomes, and build their expertise in a risk-free environment.

The PMzone Digital Simulation Board Game presents players with challenges as they manage a project in the game along a dynamic route. They must plan and execute known tasks, deal with constraints and risks, and adapt to unforeseen issues. With limited resources at the start, players must balance short-term actions with long-term goals, making tough calls when faced with setbacks or shortages. If they run out of resources mid-turn, they can purchase more but at double the normal cost, emphasizing the importance of careful planning and foresight.

Unlike traditional dice-based board games, PMzone’s progress hinges entirely on strategic decision-making. Each turn starts on the next step from where the previous turn ended, so players must plan not just their current move, but also how their choices will affect future turns. Key checkpoints—milestones and gates—offer vital rewards, while end-of-game performance reports encourage reflection and continuous improvement. Through this immersive experience, players hone real-world project management skills, from resource allocation to risk mitigation and beyond.

For project management professionals, PMzone offers a structured yet dynamic way to practice and enhance skills. Learn more about PMzone and get 50% off using the coupon code bonnie50, valid until February 28, 2025. Visit PMzone Digital Simulation Board Game to explore more. (I have not and will not receive any financial incentive from the promotion of this product.)

 

My course Project Management Foundations was #2 in LinkedIn Learning’s Most Popular courses of 2024. Watch it for free with this link!

 

 

 

 

Coming Up

My updated version of Agile Project Management with Microsoft Project will be published soon! Look for the announcement when it publishes.

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 83,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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A Tip for Introverted Project Managers: Your team probably likes you that way.

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A tip for introverted project managers

 

With all the people skills project managers need, introverts might worry that they won’t be able to manage projects effectively. As a fellow introvert, I can reassure you that introverts can make great project managers. Here’s why:

Many of your team members are introverts. Engineers, developers, technical folk of all ilks tend to introversion. They usually want clear, rational reasons why the project is important and how they fit into the project picture. They almost always dislike sales pitches and hype.

It turns out, executives also appreciate clear, fact-based explanations of where a project stands, issues it faces, and what can be done.

As an introverted project manager, you might be most comfortable organizing the project environment and making sure the work gets done. You also understand the importance of the project, the makeup of the players, and more. You are the perfect person to help your team members grasp the info they need, because you can talk in their language.

What’s more, you don’t have to be a cheerleader to lead a team. Introverts can inspire and motivate people just fine. Think leading by example. Or guiding and growing your team members behind the scenes. (As an introvert, you’re likely to manage people with a lighter touch than extroverts use.)

Finally, well-planned, thoughtful, and powerful persuasion can convince people at all levels to do what’s needed.

To learn more about leading, check out the courses in the LinkedIn Learning Become a Leader learning path.

#bonniebiafore #projectpointers #projectmanagement

 

Coming Up

January 9, 2025 Coaching Your Project Sponsor

The project sponsor plays a big part in the success of the project. And yet, very few executives understand their role as project sponsor. In this Office Hours, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez joins me to talk about what makes a great project sponsor and what you can do to ensure that your sponsor lives up to their title.

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This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 83,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

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