Imminent First (temporary name)
Context
After performing Risk Identification, initial Risk Assessment and prioriting them.
Prioritized risks already have a Mitigation Plan and some of them have Contingency Plans.
These stages created a very long list of risks for the Decision Maker than time to review and address all of them.
Problem
Activation of contingency plans requires using more expensive resources than the project is currently assigned,
- they typically should be made by higher levels of decision makers
Of all the top priority risks, how can you know which are the ones that should require the decision maker's attention when deciding upon activation of contingency plan ?
Forces
- Decision maker's tight schedule is not equal to the project schedule
- Activating the contingency plan too early significantly impacts cost and project risk mitigation budget
- Activating the contingency plan too early may disrupt the mitigation plan or cause waste of project resources
- Activating the contingency plan too late will defeat its purpose or impact project schedule and possibly costs
Solution
Present the decision maker with the most Imminent Risk First.
Look at those risks that have contingency plans defined for them, disregarding their impact and probability. Separate Time Frames for activation of the contingency plan into Imminent, Near and Far:
- - Imminent is used for risks where the Contingency Plan is on the critical path and failing to activate it within a short period will cause delay of project delivery, including the time required for starting up the contingency plan.
- - Near is used for risks where we are near the decision point, but not on it.
- - Far is used for risks where we are far from the decision point.
Discussion
- The Time Frame for Imminent, Near and Far are determined ralative to the project schedule - for projects with duration of years, Near may be up to the first quarter or half of the year. For projects with duration of months, this may be weeks (or days when we are in more critical phases.).
Use the Time Frame to prioritize risks in the same risk zone (i.e, red, yellow or green) for discussion with the decision authority.
Resulting Context
By putting the risks with imminent contingency plans for discussion first, the decision maker's attention is focused on those risks that require more urgent decisions.
This mode of prioritizing also allows more time for attempting Mitigation Plans in order to avoid activating the contingency plans too early, thereby putting less of the project's budget reserve at risk.
Known Uses
- You need to be aware that decision makers are prone to look at the costs involved in continuing the mitigation plan, following the costs already sunk into implementing the mitigation plan - a problem quite similar to the Gambler's Gambit.
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Related Patterns
Risk mitigation (system, Tehcnical) Integration process Hurricane & Tornado - meteorological.
Contingency Plan is a pattern, too!