Thanks to technological advancement and the constant need for companies to evolve in order to maintain their market competitiveness, new projects emerge, whether in information technology, automation, or others. Every project has its uncertainties and risks, which present both threats and opportunities, often mistakenly associated only with negative aspects.
The foundation of the project must be well-structured; that is, scope, time, and cost need to be carefully defined and monitored. Good planning, combined with assertive alignment across all stages, helps mitigate many risks and ensures project success.
Follow some steps to perform risk management in an IT project:
Expectations
The first step of any project is understanding what the client wants to achieve in the end—a simple activity, yet often neglected. Before setting up a schedule, defining the team, and planning other activities, it is necessary to understand what the client expects to obtain from the delivery.
Understanding this expectation means comprehending how the delivery will be made, what the expected results and benefits are, as well as the methodologies used for measurement and the perspective of impact on the company. This clarification is necessary to diagnose the degree of clarity, avoiding potential scope changes.
Planning
During the planning phase, we define the work team—that is, the right people for the right activities. At this point, it is important to choose people for activities based on their skills, minimizing the risks of rework and, consequently, delays or unnecessary expenses.
In this context, the project manager must be able to engage the team, present the project proposal, and motivate everyone to contribute, as the active participation of stakeholders is fundamental to success.
During the planning phase, numerous techniques can be used in the risk management activity to list internal and external agents that may act as opportunities or threats.
Brainstorming can be used as a technique in multiple rounds, as shown in the example below:
- Internal (threat): What could prevent our team from delivering the project?
- Internal (opportunities): What differentiators do we have that we can use in this project?
- External (threats): What could happen that might disrupt our project, which we cannot predict or control? (e.g., new laws, change of the user who requested the project, natural events, among others)
- External (Opportunities): What could happen that is beyond our control, which, if it occurs, could positively boost our project?
Efficient Manager
The project manager plays a fundamental role in the processes and must truly prioritize communication and the quality of information processed within the team. It is their responsibility to organize information, handle communications, and close agreements. Besides knowing practices like PMP, Agile, or Prince2, the project manager must possess strong relational skills and know how to understand the expectations of both their team and their client.
It is up to the project manager to track and monitor the results obtained in each macro-phase of the project, ensuring that any failures are recovered and serve as lessons for the next phases.
Productivity: Meetings and Communications
Unproductive meetings and excessive emails can lead a project to failure; therefore, it is important to define agendas and ensure that information is relevant to everyone.
Meetings should have:
- A defined agenda presented before the meeting to allow stakeholders to be prepared to discuss the topic. This avoids the excuse of “I’ll need to gather the information.”
- When a subject needs to be reviewed and requires feedback, it should be clear whose responsibility it is to gather the information and align on a return date, as well as who it should be addressed to.
- Meeting minutes recorded for future reference.
Excessive communication turns into SPAM. Often, both the client and the project manager forward emails throughout the day, but the client may not always be available. Therefore, urgent matters should be handled through other means, such as phone calls or messaging services.
Hardware Configuration to Meet Demand
Using the bare minimum hardware in a project is one of the main failures in risk management; that is, some suppliers choose to use minimal hardware configurations to keep project costs low. However, the ideal approach is for the hardware configuration to meet the employees’ demands without harming the project budget.
Tests must be performed, and efficient hardware is essential in this process. This way, it will be possible to satisfy users and establish the expected cost-benefit ratio.
Execution of Tests
Tests are essential for project success. Therefore, putting them on the back burner can lead your project to failure. Tests allow flaws to be found and resolved in a timely manner—meaning without delays that could generate unexpected costs.
Therefore, create a test plan. With it, you will have a schedule that tracks the project phases and delivers the expected results, as it will be possible to perform tests directly on the system or on specific components, such as a particular interface.
Another way to reduce risks is to develop automated tests. These help ensure that other project deliverables do not negatively impact what has already been developed.
What did you think of our tips? Do you understand how to perform risk management in an IT project? Share your opinion with us in the comments!
