What do you do if your project risk assessment and mitigation plan is not effective?

Regularly reevaluate risks by finding new ones, assessing current ones, prioritising them, and upgrading mitigation tactics to increase the efficacy of your project risk assessment and mitigation plan. Share updates with project stakeholders, keep an eye on potential hazards, and modify plans of action as necessary. The project's chances of success are increased by this proactive strategy, which helps foresee and handle possible problems.

I always like to reassess the risks of my projects, products or initiatives. Why? Because everything changes all the time and it's normal in a context of change for risks to arise that are inherent to environments and processes. Reassessing risk also indicates that we always need to be communicating well with our users, clients and stakeholders, which makes the impact of the necessary change smoother.

??Risks are not static in any type of project. When it comes to IT projects, these risks tend to be even more varied and fast, as they combine issues of interface, environment, infrastructure, various data, in other words, there are many critical points. Furthermore, the risk map must be as broad as possible, considering specific points of the project but also broader aspects that may impact on it.

Risk analysis isn't a do once at the start of a project and forget, it's an iterative process fundamental to any project. Focus on the big ticket risks that would keep you awake at night, and not on creating a list as long as your arm of everything that could possibly go wrong.

Determine where the miss happened. Did we not take the organization's risk appetite into account? Or did we miss one or more actual risks? Or did we simply select risk treatments that were ineffective? At this point, I would involve the project sponsor to get their take. If you are more junior in your career, consider involving your mentor or a trusted security partners (consultant).

Every risk needs a treatment plan for handling it, so make sure you have a 'break glass in case of emergency' plan for each major risk. Know the impact and make sure it is communicated. It's not your fault if a risk materialises that you've seen. This happens in projects all the time. What's important is your response. It's never the problem that's the problem; it's the response.

Risk identification and management must be a team task, not just for a manager to do alone. Make sure major stakeholders input into the risks and their mitigations. Risk management in isolation will be a disaster.

Close monitoring is necessary if a risk becomes an issue or is on the brink of doing so. We can fall into the trap of hoping things will resolve themselves quickly or that they will sort themselves out. If a risk is very likely, ensure it has an owner and is being actively managed and reported upon.

Everyone should know how to manage and update risks, but I'd spend your likely limited time working with team members identifying and managing your risks, rather than lots of training on risk management techniques and tools.

As the Project Manager, if you have a mentor or trusted security partners (consultant), consider involving them back in step 1. They may see something that you didn't in terms of the actual risks or appropriate risk treatment options.