Fill It, Shut It, Forget It

Long before Hrithik Roshan[1] became their brand ambassador and set hearts “Dhak, Dhak, Go”, Hero Honda used to run an advertising campaign – “Fill it, shut it, forget it”. They were referring to the fuel economy of their bike which was claimed as 80 kilometres per litre. That’s why the line “Fill it …”

This popular ad-line popped up in my mind from nowhere, when a close colleague remarked that his project just goes on and on and on.  I began to wonder if the Hero Honda tag line “Fill it …” applied to project management too. I see more people looking at project management as a template filling game. The biggest and most talked about template we fill up is the risk management template. Fill it, save and close it and forget it seems to the practice of risk management.

My observation has been that using standard checklist people do prepare a list of risk or a risk register as described in PMBOK.  But the question is, do we move beyond risk identification and manage risks at all?  So in-spite of all the great intent with which register and plans are prepared, projects continue to fail.  In my view this is perhaps due to two problems

One, the risk register is not integrated with the rest of the project plan.

Two, the risk register remains a well intentioned document but there is hardly any follow up or in the PMBOK parlance, monitoring and control, of risks.

Problem one, is largely an issue of integrated planning. Revisiting the plan taking the risk as inputs is an area that needs improvement. It’s a good practice to show significant risk mitigation steps in the schedule as activities. This ensures that the mitigation plans have an owner and a date.

For example, if the lack of expertise in technology is identified as a risk condition, the corresponding mitigation response would be training the team. One or multiple activities related to training should be there in the project schedule. Taking the same example further, if this training involves hiring a vendor’s services, one should allocate a cost to this which in all probability may consume the reserves or contingency fund.

It is also possible that training once conducted, may not reduce the risk exposure and one will now need a contingency plan or plan B to reduce the impact of this risk to the objectives. For example, hiring expert services on short term contract could be your plan B.

Problem two is the ongoing monitoring and controlling of risk register. It is not sufficient that risks be documented during planning alone. The on-going effort and not just intent to monitor and control, is critical and not doing this is as good no risk management at all.  Remember a risk never closes completely, it just retires. At the same time, a new risk could be just lurking around the corner.

Apart from this, it is possible that the risk exposure of active risks changes that in turn may impact the overall project objective.

Identifying risk triggers is not only useful for monitoring but also assists the manager in defining the appropriate mitigation steps. Risk trigger plays an important role in alerting the manager if a risk is likely to occur. If you are not watching out for the trigger and looking at the actual risk event instead, you may not be left with much leeway to act.

Like they say, chance only favors a prepared mind, just filling up the risk register template and shutting it is not good enough or else we forget about project success.