QUICK RISK ASSESSMENT

Your ability to manage and control risks is more important than the probability or severity of the risks themselves. What would be a manageable, safe risk for one firm would be an unmanageable, unsafe risk for another.

Do not make a Go-No-Go decision purely on numbers. The average risk score shown on the Report Cover page can be misleading: a large number of low-risk categories could mask the importance of a few high-risk categories that could create real problems for you later.

Follow these 5 steps:

1. Complete the matrix questions, using the best match of your skills and resources to the possible answers.
2. Click the Report button and select the Risk Quotient option. This will display your risk analysis and mitigation recommendations with the highest risk answers first. You can click through the results, category by category.
3. Click the PDF/Print button, which will create a consolidated Report document that you can view on line, print or save to your desktop as a pdf file. It will display all of the risk categories except those you have omitted, whether you completed them or not.
4. Review any red (high risk) and yellow (medium risk) categories. If either a third of the items come up yellow, or 3 to 5 come up red, the project is quite risky and a probable no-go.
5. If, after reading the risk analyses, you still want to take on this project, read the recommended mitigation strategies to see if you can implement enough changes to bring the effective risk down to a point where you can safely manage the risk.