Premium Essay

Risk Breakdown

In: Miscellaneous

Submitted By riley3187
Words 621
Pages 3
An Introduction to the Risk Breakdown Structure

When planning a project to meet targets for cost, schedule, or quality, it is useful to identify likely risks to the success of the project. A risk is any possible situation that is not planned for, but that, if it occurs, is likely to divert the project from its planned result. For example, an established project team plans for the work to be done by its staff, but there is the risk that an employee may unexpectedly leave the team.
In Project Management, the Risk Management Process has the objectives of identifying, assessing, and managing risks, both positive and negative. All too often, project managers focus only on negative risk, however, good things can happen in a project, "things" that were foreseen, but not expressly planned.
The objective of Risk Management is to predict risks, assess their likelihood and impact, and to actively plan what should be done ahead of time to best deal with situations when they occur.
The risk management process usually occurs in five distinct steps: risk management planning, risk identification, risk analysis, risk response planning, and risk monitoring and control. The central point of risk identification and assessment in risk management is understanding the risk. However, this is also where project managers and risk subject matter experts (SMEs) get the least help from recognized references, best practices, or work standards.
Currently, the Project Management Institute (PMIr) has a team of SMEs working on a Practice Standard for Risk Management. This team has identified one very good tool: the Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS). The RBS helps the project manager, the risk manager, and almost any stakeholder to understand, and therefore be able to identify and assess risk.
[edit]What is a "Risk Breakdown Structure?"

The RBS will prove extremely valuable to better grasp

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Risk Breakdown Structure

...Use a Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) to Understand Your Risks David Hillson, PhD, PMP, FAPM, MIRM, MCMI, Director of Consultancy, Project Management Professional Solutions Limited Introducing the Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) The risk management process aims to identify and assess risks in order to enable the risks to be understood clearly and managed effectively. The key step linking identification/assessment of risks with their management is understanding. This is, however, the area where the project manager or risk practitioner gets least help from current guidelines or practice standards. There are many commonly used techniques for risk identification (see, for example, the risk management chapter of A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide, Project Management Institute, 2000). These identification techniques, however, tend to produce an unstructured list of risks that often does not directly assist the project manager in knowing where to focus risk management attention. Qualitative assessment can help to prioritize identified risks by estimating probability and impacts, exposing the most significant risks; but this deals with risks one at a time and does not consider possible patterns of risk exposure, and so also does not provide an overall understanding of the risk faced by the project as a whole. In order to understand which areas of the project might require special attention, and whether there are any recurring risk themes, or concentrations...

Words: 3206 - Pages: 13

Free Essay

Mr Njabulo

...QUESTION 2 11 3. QUESTION 3 21 4. QUESTION 4 28 5. QUESTION 5 36 6. REFERENCES 45 7. APPENDIXTURE 48 1. QUESTION 1 a) Explain the processes which lead to electrical breakdown of air by the streamer mechanism. Your explanation should include a discussion of the influence of pressure, gap length and electric field uniformity The concept of streamer type of breakdown is based on the Townsend type breakdown, which requires a complete sequence of avalanches [2]. According to Reather, the streamer type of breakdown differs from the latter because it assumes that the growth of a single electron avalanche becomes unstable. The original criterion by Reather only addressed the primary ionization processes, i.e. electron collision. With increased understanding of electron processes the role of attachment became apparent and the criterion was modified to the following equation: oxα-ηdx=18 (1) Simultaneous with Raether’s work, Meek. identified the Streamer mechanism and formulated the following breakdown criterion: According to Meek the instability is caused by the space charge field from the electrons and ions in the head of an avalanche. The breakdown occurs when the space charge field from the avalanche head becomes the same order of size as external applied field .The instability results in the formation of fast moving anode and cathode...

Words: 10460 - Pages: 42

Premium Essay

Article Critique: the Danger of Arc Flash

...Unit IV Article Critique: The Danger of Arc Flash Columbia Southern University The Danger of Arc Flash This article is about the dangers of arc flash specifically fire fighters. The article explains what arc flash is and what the resulting injuries can be plus causes of arc flash in the workplace. It talks about the responsibilities of the employer and the employee and the standards for electrical safety in the workplace. The article was written in 2009 by Elizabeth Ford Burkhart for Fire Engineering July 2009 issue. The article starts out with an excerpt from a fatal incident to an Illinois firefighter and an electrician. This significance of this excerpt is it shows the dangers of an arc flash even with trained professionals when working around high amp sources. In 2009 there was two workers killed every day from arc flash incidents. An arc flash is an explosive release of energy cause by an electrical arc and some times with a high-energy arcing fault you can also have an arc blast which has extreme pressure and sound blast. It can be compared to energy hotter than the sun and explosive strength of eight sticks of dynamite. Arc flash can happen from coming in close proximity of a high amp source, dropping a conductive object into an energized system or equipment failure to name a few. It can even happen from something as simple as a break in insulation or dust and corrosion build up. The article discussed the employer responsibility as...

Words: 567 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Working with to Team

...performance, reliability, constructively, having these item listed as a team that works. What doesn't? When a team doesn’t work usually all or some of the items listed above. That’s why it it very important to follow that guidance that are places on your team until completion. What do you do when a communication breakdown occurs within a team? There are several things that you can do when a communication breakdown occurs within a team. Breakdown often happens when someone has false assumptions about what someone is or is not supporting a team. So confirming that everyone is on the same page is on way to clear up any misunderstand standings within a team. Write a communication plan for your group that includes ways to prevent communication breakdowns, and ways to fix communication breakdowns when they occur. Fortunately there are numerous things that can do to prevent breakdowns ways to fix communication breakdowns when they occur. One thing that you can do Be sure to include examples of teams where communication breakdowns occurred, identify where, when and how the breakdown happened, and why. List possible ways the communication breakdown could have been prevented or fixed. If the solution is given in your example, evaluate the solution. Would your communication plan need to change if you were working with a culturally diverse team? Why or why not? Also, share your experiences about two different work groups--one effective and one ineffective in...

Words: 609 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Effective Communication

...Taking what you've learned from the readings and videos this week, write a 3-5 page paper using APA style and formatting to include a title page, abstract, and bibliography. Research ways to effectively communicate within a team. What works? What doesn't? What do you do when a communication breakdown occurs within a team? Write a communication plan for your group that includes ways to prevent communication breakdowns, and ways to fix communication breakdowns when they occur. Be sure to include examples of teams where communication breakdowns occurred, identify where, when and how the breakdown happened, and why. List possible ways the communication breakdown could have been prevented or fixed. If the solution is given in your example, evaluate the solution. Would your communication plan need to change if you were working with a culturally diverse team? Why or why not? Also, share your experiences about two different work groups--one effective and one ineffective in the areas noted below. If you don’t have any or much experience with groups at work, you can instead analyze other types of groups in which you’ve been a member, such as a club, church group, sports team, etc. a. Describe each group with regard to an overview of the members, their positions/roles, gender, ages, and any other factors you think will help us understand the makeup of the group. Please do not share names. b. Describe the purpose of each group with regard to what it did. What tasks did...

Words: 474 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Accounting

...SAMPLE - Safety Management System Risk Matrix Risk Severity Risk Probability 5 – Frequent 4 – Likely Catastrophic A 5A 4A 3A 2A 1A Critical B 5B 4B 3B 2B 1B Moderate C 5C 4C 3C 2C 1C Minor D 5D 4D 3D 2D 1D Negligible E 5E 4E 3E 2E 1E 3 - Occasional 2 – Seldom 1 – Improbable Assessment Risk Index Criteria Accountable Organizations Risk Review Board (RRB) and / or VP Corporate Safety, Security, Quality & Environment Managing Directors and / or Risk Analysis Board (RAB) 5A, 5B, 5C, 4A, 4B, 3A Unacceptable under existing circumstances requires immediate action 5D, 5E, 4C, 3B, 3C, 2A, 2B Manageable under risk control & mitigation. Requires RAB & management decision 4D, 4E, 3D, 2C, 1A, 1B Acceptable after review of the operation. Requires continued tracking and recorded action plans. Acceptable with continued data collection and trending for continuous improvement. Managing Directors, Managers and /or Accountable Org. Levels 3E, 2D, 2E, 1C, 1D, 1E Department Managers and / or Accountable Org. Levels Page 1 SAMPLE - Safety Management System Risk Matrix Probability of Occurrences Qualitative definition Frequent Meaning Likely to occur many times (occurred frequently) Will be continuously experienced unless action is taken to change events Likely to occur some times (occurred infrequently) The activity or event expected to occur 50-99% of the time. Will occur often if events follow normal patterns of process or procedure...

Words: 845 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Mini-Case

...and Beverage, Wine and Spirit, and Specialty Market brand owners in North, Central and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Asia”. As a global producer of “innovative decorating solutions to many of the world’s largest consumer goods companies”, Multicolor faces operational risks within the company’s control which could adversely affect the corporation’s business. These risk factors could result from breakdowns in internal procedures, people and systems. “Multicolor Corporation has grown through a series of mergers and acquisitions, and consequently, faced the challenges associated with managing [several] different plants running on disparate, and, in some cases, manual systems”. Although in 2004 the company implemented software to in a n effort “to standardize operations across all of its plants in order to maximize efficiencies and gain visibility across the entire production process” With that being said, Multicolor faces internal operational risks this software not being utilized correctly by employees which could cause a breakdown in the production and manufacture of labels. Based on the information attached information provided, the financial risk of the company, or its debt to total capitalization ratio is 59.39%. LABL’s long term debt (all numbers in thousands) is $435,554, its total stockholder’s equity is $297,747. To equation to calculate the debt to total capitalization ratio is $435,554/($297,747 + $435,554) = 0.5939. A high debt to capitalization...

Words: 489 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Relevance of Operations Research

...Relevance of Operations Research Operations research is the basic scientific knowledge which has analytical and mathematical nature leading to the development of different kinds of models that can be beneficial in the decision making. By studying operations research we can learn different models and compare them to real-world problems in order for us to avoid taking risk or making bad decisions in real cases, hence, utilizing the finances and resources in the best way possible. The goal of every organization is to maximize its profits and minimize its costs, operations research play a crucial role in helping the company reach its goal by taking precautions and being aware because of the knowledge they have to do the problem solving. One of the most commonly known problems that can be addressed by operations research is the production problem. It could be used when the manager wants to optimize the production processes and reduce the risk of damaged or faulted products by making models that would help the manager to evaluate and analyze the various probabilities and then select the most efficient and effective one. Example: In the 1980’s when Rover cars (now known as the MG Rover) were developing the Metro at their long bridge plants, they used operations research to make the best use of their knowledge in manufacturing processes by inventing the ‘Visual Interactive Model’. Cars move along in the production line through various processes like welding, painting, trim etc...

Words: 504 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Risk Assessment

...strategy that made use of technological innovation and automation of their systems. However, as GFI experienced a steady growth in its financial operation, a significant security risk lack within its network. GFI relies on its application servers; the Oracle database and the email system that are the backbone of the GFI financial operations. The financial and cash flow system of the company solely depends on the network, any network breakdown, and system failure would be catastrophic for the business and its clients. The recent multiple cyber attacks on the GFIs network and the 2012 Oracle server attack that left the company integrity, confidentiality and availability venerable for several days. Although the servers were restored, the damage was extensive and lead GFI to pay for clients damages in their loss of data confidentiality. Another attack left the entire GIF network down that lead to losses in revenues and intangible customer confidence to the tunes of over a million US dollars. Risk Assessment Purpose The aim of this risk assessment is to evaluate the details of GFI network security. Further, the risk assessment is to come up with a structured qualitative assessment of GFIs network environment and provide possible solutions for mitigating the sensitivity, threats, vulnerabilities, risks and safeguards of the GFIs network. Besides, the assessment will recommend on a potential cost-effective assurance that will combat the threats and associated exploitable...

Words: 2661 - Pages: 11

Premium Essay

Strategic Planning in Information Technology

...State | | | | Ultimate Goal | | | | Risks and Assumptions Project Risks and Assumptions | Risk Owner | Contingency Plans | 1. | | | 2. | | | 3. | | | 4. | | | Stakeholders Stakeholders | Interest in Project | Primary: | | Others: | | Resources Required * Funding _____________ * People ______________ * Equipment ___________ * Other _______________ Team Operating Principles * _________________ * _________________ * _________________ Lessons Learned * ________________ * ________________ * ________________ Commitment Sponsor | Department / Organization | Signature | | | | Project Manager | Department / Organization | Signature | | | | Core Team Members | Department/ Organization | Signature | | | | | | | | | | Part II Budget: Using either a Microsoft Word Table or an Excel Spreadsheet, create a detailed budget for this project. The numbers you use for this budget should be realistic. For example, if you are going to have to rent folding chairs, conduct some research and find out how much that would cost. If you have to contract a cleaning crew, research various companies that do this and use those numbers. You will be graded on your knowledge of the subject, not the accuracy of the numbers. Your budget must include at least 10 items that you will have to pay for. (Insert Budget Here) 2. Work Breakdown Structure. Using Exhibits...

Words: 358 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Boston Beer Company Financial Impact

...Risk and Financial Impact As with all new ventures, potential risks may have a financial impact* on Boston Beer Company (BBC). In short, the latent risks of BBC’s new hard soda product line may cause revenue loss. Events (e.g. regulatory changes, supply shortages or natural disasters) may have a substantial economic impact to business, based on how business activities are effected (InvestorWords, n.d.). The following three sections address the major potential risks and financial impact, and the mitigation plan which addresses risk. Potential Risks Table 1: Potential Risks Suppler/Vendor Concerns Federal, State and/or Local Regulations Raw Material Prices Access to Capital Ability to Innovate to Meet Customer Needs Distribution Disruption Economic Conditions Competition Less Demand for Products Source: (Toomey, 2014)...

Words: 1625 - Pages: 7

Free Essay

External Company Is Called the Outsourcing Company

...called "virtual integration"—a stitching together of Dell's business with its supply partners and customers in real time such that all three appeared to be part of the same organizational team. Outsourcing Outsourcing can be defined as the contracting out of business function(s) to an external, provider. The ability of businesses to outsource to external companies outside the nation is referred to as offshoring or offshore outsourcing. Outsourcing is done for various purposes. Business organizations outsource to seek benefits or address the issues that they currently have. The mains reasons and benefits of outsourcing is to save cost, focus on core business, improve quality, knowledge, operational expertise, reduce time to market, risk management etc. Outsourcing helps to reduce cost and need of in-house expertise. The company can focus more on core business. For example, most...

Words: 1378 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Arguments for and Against Diversification

...rush. When it is successful, it gives great competitive advantage and a substantial growth but if it fails it could lead to very grave consequences. It is used to defuse the risk of losing out totally if one business performs better than the other. Arguments in favour of diversification is that, * It makes it simpler for a business to protect its capital when it is assigning funds to other investments. * It lowers the risk of putting all the eggs in one basket * It provides the human resource department the chance to improve and also attract efficient professionals. * It safeguards against financial failure if the market becomes dormant. * It also helps in managing risk and lowers the instability of an asset price change. Unfortunately, it does not depend on how diversified an organization is, risk cannot be totally removed. When an organisation diversifies, the risk is traded for either a market risk or an economic risk and it depends on the organizations portfolio, it also decides on how much of equity that will be unprotected to each type of risk that may surface. Although diversification reduces the exposure of a certain risk, it also reduces prospective rewards. Arguments against diversification are- * It is not a successful way to protect funds when a financial breakdown occurs. * It can be more expensive than originally projected, although it depends on the amount that is invested. It could affect the general turnover due to the estimated...

Words: 518 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Disadvantages Of Project Management

...1.1Project Schedule In project management, a calendar is a posting of a venture's breakthroughs, exercises, and deliverable, generally with planned begin and completion dates. Those things are regularly evaluated regarding asset distribution, plan and span, joined by conditions and booked occasions. A timetable is ordinarily utilized within venture arranging and task portfolio management parts of project management. Elements on a schedule may be closely related to the work breakdown structure (WBS), a calendar is a posting of a venture's developments, exercises, and deliverable, generally with proposed begin and completion dates. Those things are frequently assessed regarding asset portion, plan and term, connected by conditions and planned...

Words: 2083 - Pages: 9

Premium Essay

How Investment Can Increase

...trading countries which is a significant benefit. Imports and exports increase in both the trading countries. The quality of the product increases with a free flow of international trade. There is widespread technological advancement. There is a spill over effect of technology and quality in the existing economies. Focus on research and development increase The profits gained by foreign direct investment increases re-investment opportunities in the developing economy. Low transportation costs Avoiding trade restriction to expand into foreign markets Tax benefits Same currency converters for revenue and costs, thus reducing risk by foreign exchange Disadvantages of Foreign Direct Investment Domestic companies not equipped to survive competition will not survive. The foreign investor will be profit-oriented and may risk the entire joint venture. There are rules and regulations developed by each economy to protect the interests of national shareholders and enterprises....

Words: 519 - Pages: 3