What do you do if risk management is jeopardizing your network engineering project?

1 Understand the risk management framework

The first step is to understand the risk management framework that your organization or client follows. This will help you identify the key roles, responsibilities, and procedures involved in assessing, mitigating, and reporting risks. You should also familiarize yourself with the risk categories, criteria, and thresholds that apply to your project. This will help you communicate and justify your network engineering decisions and trade-offs in terms of risk levels and impacts.

2 Involve the risk manager early and often

The second step is to involve the risk manager or the person in charge of risk management in your project from the start. This will help you establish a good rapport and trust with them, and avoid surprises or conflicts later on. You should also keep them updated on your network engineering progress, issues, and changes, and seek their feedback and approval when needed. This will help you align your network engineering goals with the risk management objectives and expectations.

3 Document and prioritize your network risks

The third step is to document and prioritize your network risks in a clear and consistent way. You should use a risk register or a similar tool to capture and track your network risks, along with their sources, causes, effects, probabilities, impacts, and mitigation strategies. You should also assign a priority or a rating to each network risk, based on the risk criteria and thresholds that you established earlier. This will help you focus on the most critical and urgent network risks, and allocate your resources and efforts accordingly.

4 Implement and monitor your risk mitigation plans

The fourth step is to implement and monitor your risk mitigation plans for your network engineering project. You should follow the best practices and standards for network design, configuration, testing, and deployment, and use appropriate tools and methods to reduce or eliminate your network risks. You should also monitor and measure your network performance, reliability, security, and compliance, and report any deviations or incidents to the risk manager. This will help you demonstrate your network engineering quality and value, and address any potential or actual network risks.

5 Communicate and escalate your network risks

The fifth step is to communicate and escalate your network risks effectively and timely. You should use the appropriate channels and formats to communicate your network risks to the relevant stakeholders, such as the project manager, the sponsor, the client, or the end-users. You should also escalate your network risks to the higher authorities or decision-makers when they exceed your authority or capacity to manage them. This will help you gain support and guidance for your network engineering project, and resolve any conflicts or disputes that may arise.

6 Learn and improve from your network risks

The sixth and final step is to learn and improve from your network risks and their outcomes. You should conduct a post-mortem or a lessons learned session at the end of your network engineering project, and review and analyze your network risks and their mitigation results. You should also document and share your network risk management best practices, challenges, and recommendations for future projects. This will help you enhance your network engineering skills and knowledge, and improve your network risk management performance and maturity.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?