Billboard Design Thinking Reverse Brain Storming for Project Risk Management

According to the Special CHAOS Report on Digital Transformation Projects from www.standishgroup.com the success rate for projects is not very promising. In total less than 30% of all projects are successful and a majority of all projects are challenge which means they are either out of scope, out of budget or out of time or don't deliver the ROI promised and expected when starting the project. (29% Successful, 52% Challenged, 19% Failed)

Refers brain storming for project managers

Seeing the numbers above you can guess that many project managers are struggling with risk management and certainly could use a tool to find hidden risks and update their risk registry to avoid belonging to the challenged or failing projects.

In this article George Anderson an me will walk you through a simple exercise called "Reverse Brain Storming" that will help you find solutions to project risks and update your risk registry.

It's a simple and fun exercise and we hope it will help you detect and mitigate project risks before they make your project fail. Below you will find simple step-by-step explanation and you can download the PowerPoint file and printable image for your project team.

Exercise overview

The exercise consists of five major parts

1. Identify the risk
2. Reverse the risk and pick the worst idea
3. Switch back to the original idea and find a solution
4. Update the risk registry
5. Take time to think how this will positively impact your team

Preparing the Billboard Workshop with Klaxoon

Download the template and create a new Klaxoon Board and add the two images as background.

Introducing the workshop and explaining the topic

Explain what reverse brain storming means. The basic idea is very simple. If you can solve a problem and are looking for new ideas you can first reverse the problem then try to solve the reversed problem and finally translate those revers solutions into real solutions.

For example if in your project the project sponsor is not involved, is not attending meetings and not taking responsibility you can think about what activities could make the situation even worse. For example you will refuse to talk to the project sponsor never read his/her e-mails and automatically reject all requests from the project sponsor.

Step 1: Identify the risk

In order to solve your risk your first must identify and this includes the following activities:

1. Define the name of the risk owner and determine who is responsible for mitigating the risk.
2. Describe the risk by giving a short description
3. Add the risk context explaining when and how the risk appears and what conditions are true when the risk is visible.
4. List all know risk symptoms. This is about describing activities and circumstances that make the risk visible.

Step 2: Reverse the risk and find ideas to aggravate the situation

1. Reverse the risk statement from: "How can we increase the project sponsors engagement" to "What can we do to disengage the project sponsor"
2. Brain storm and collect as many mean ideas that will help you ensure the project sponsor is completely disengaged. Try to be as nasty as possible. Try to imagine everything that will make the project sponsor feel this project is not worth one minute of his/her time.
3. Vote on the three most offensive ideas that will make your project sponsor regret he ever meet you and signed the contract with your company. What will make him/her so angry that he will forget about the team and completely disengage.

Here is an example how to best disengage your project sponsor and make him/her regret the day he/she signed the contract.

Step 3: Reverse the bad ideas to good solutions

1. Take each bad idea and convert it into a positive productive idea.
2. Take your time and ask for each bad idea what would the obvious positive counter part look like
3. Discuss with your team which are the three best solutions you want to focus on to improve the situation. In our case the question is: What are the three most suitable activities that will improve the stakeholder engagement.

Here are the top three ideas we found in our brain storming session.

Step 4: Update the risk registry

I'm no project managing expert but what I learned from George Anderson when we discussed the workshop design is that you probably won't be successful if you don't manage your risk properly and the proper way to do it is to regularly update your risk registry. Define the category, risk type, owner, probability and risk level and evaluate the impact and come up with some risk mitigation steps.

Make this exercise a team exercise and repeat this fun exercise on a regular basis.

Step 5: Thing about your team and getting closer to the island

The last exercise is an optional team exercise to let your team members imagine how a reduced risk situation will impact the team moral and ability to work focused and efficiently. Often projects that are under scrutiny and high risk exhaust all team members and bring the project back on track often starts with lifting the team moral and believe the team will succeed.

We have to many failing software projects and excellent risk management

can be fun if you use Billboard design thinking!

• If you want to download your free template please join the LinkedIn Billboard Design Thinking Group
• If you want to see how the Klaxoon workshop looks like click this link and discuss with your team if they want to give it a try. https://app.klaxoon.com/join/QYUVVN9

If you want to learn how to design your own Billboard Design Thinking workshops join me at the Never Done Before Festival

I will conduct a 24 hours Moderator Training marathon with

six three hours sessions in six time zone to teach Billboard Design Thinking

neverdonebefore.org – The event of 2020

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If you like the approach you can find a book in Kindle Shop

• It explains the entire method on 541 pages including: Why you need a workshop, Billboard Design Thinking Method, Ready made templates, Real Workshop Examples How to prices and promote a workshop How to set up your room What materials do you need:
• Link: Kindle Shop