Risk Management Plan

The Project Management Institute (2017) describes ten strategies for responding to project risks. Five strategies are used for threats (negative risks), and five are used for opportunities (positive risks). Taking into account the Pepsi Refresh Project case study and the risks that you identified in previous weeks for this case study, develop detailed risk response plans for the risks identified.

Address the following items for responding to project risks in the provided Risk Management Plan Template:

• Summarize the approach for developing risk response strategies. For example, which risks will you first attempt to avoid? Will you do it based on the risk factor score (P*I) or on EMV?
• Describe the process you will use to determine risk triggers (the event that tells you that the risk event is imminent).
• Document the risk triggers in the project risk register in Column G.
• Document risk response strategies (plans) for each risk in the project risk register in Columns L–M. The risk response strategies should be derived from the eight strategies from the PMBOK (PMBOK® Guide).

The detailed description of the response should include at least one paragraph per risk and should include enough details so that anyone can read the response plan and clearly understand how you will respond to the risk. For example, consider the following risk: A hurricane may strike during the conversion weekend, forcing us to back out the data converted and delay going live by four weeks. For this risk, you may write the following:

Example

RIsk Score: 16

Risk Strategy: Mitigation (mitigate impact)

Risk Response Plan:

We will mitigate the impact of a hurricane hitting South Carolina during the data conversion by moving the data conversion inland and to high ground at Clemson University. Clemson has agreed to rent their mainframe for 72 hours for a cost of $20,000, including labor. The red team will shut down our system at 5pm on Friday and back up all of our data onto tapes and provide the tapes and an inventory checklist of the tapes to the blue team, who will drive the backup tapes and another set of new, blank tapes to Clemson that night.

Contingency Plan:

If the scripts fail for any reason, the system will be restored to its original, non-converted state by using the image backups of the system.

References:

Project Management Institute. (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). Sixth edition. Newtown Square, PA: Author.

Part 1: A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)

Chapter 11, “Project Risk Management”
Section 11.5, “Plan Risk Responses” (pp. 437–448)This section of Chapter 11 explains the process for planning responses to project risks. It also includes the specific inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs that should be generated from the risk response planning process.

Rubric

Element 1: Risk Response Strategies

Provide a thorough and detailed summary of the approach for developing risk response strategies for a case study project documented in a risk register. Make sure all relevant resources are provided to support the response.

Element 2: Risk Triggers

Provide a thorough and detailed description of the process that will be used to determine risk triggers for a case study project documented in a risk register. Make sure all relevant resources are provided to support the response.