Alleviate critical risks Introduction

84 Chapter 4 n Project planning and risk management Example Pym and Wideman 1987 provide a neat analogy that contrasts these approaches. Take the situation in which someone is about to be shot at. They can avoid this risk by moving quickly to somewhere safe avoidance. They can deflect this risk by putting something a shield or someone between themselves and the assassin deflection. Or, they can assume they are going to be hit by some bullets and ring the ambulance service in advance contingency. You may like to think which of these approaches to dealing with this risk you prefer The nature of the risks within your own project will influence which of these approaches are suitable. Although your supervisor should be able to give you advice in this area, the following examples may provide you with some ideas you could adopt in your own project. n Contingency. If you feel there is a chance some tasks may over-run in your project it might be an idea to build some contingency into your project plan at the start. You could, for example, aim to complete your project four weeks ahead of its submission date – giving you four weeks of flexible time float that can be used if unexpected delays occur. Alternatively, you might like to add 10 to each of the time estimates you have made to cover any possible delays. n Deflection. You might be able to get someone else to do part of the work for you in an area where you are weak although you would have to acknowledge this clearly in your report. For example, you might be undertaking a research-based project focussing on the impact of a particular software technology in an organisation. The project may require the development of a software system and your programming skills may be weak but this is not the main focus of your work. It might, therefore, be possible, to get someone else to develop that software system for you while you remain focussed on the important evaluation component of the project. This is certainly something that would need approval from your institution or supervisor to ensure that the integrity of your own work was not compromised. n Avoidance. If there is a risk that you will not be able to develop a program because you are considering using a new programming language, perhaps you could resort to using a language with which you are familiar. n Avoidance. If your software system requires the development of an algorithm to solve a problem and you are unsure whether you can do this or not, you might be able to use an existing algorithm instead but make sure this does not reduce the potential marks you can achieve for your work. n Contingency and Avoidance. Is there a possibility that your computer might crash and you might lose all your work? Contingency planning would involve arranging an alternative machine you could use if such a problem occurred. Avoidance would involve making sufficient back-ups of your work to ensure that your work would not be lost if this happened.