Project Plan
The project plan is one of your key sources for identifying risk. You should understand the importance of the Critical Path through the plan (the shortest time needed to complete the project) and the nature of task interdependencies. The following are areas which are likely to have associated risks:
- Tasks that rely on the completion of other work before they can begin
- Tasks that none of the project team has ever done before
- Use of unfamiliar technologies
- Tasks that involve third parties
- Migration of data from one system to another
- Reliance on suppliers to deliver software upgrades at a specific time
- Availability of key decision makers at critical points
- Decisions that involved more than one department/team
- Resources/staff that are outside your direct control
- Any component of the plan based on assumption rather than fact
If you are following our advice you will be using the concept of the 'Sliding Planning Window'. This means only planning ahead so far as is feasible and sensible at the time. At the start of the project there will be much that you don't yet know. Once again senior managers and key stakeholders must understand the nature of the uncertainties because of course uncertainty means risk.
A major problem in many projects is the desire of senior managers to see a detailed plan at the start of the project and to 'freeze' that plan at too early a stage. This is not intended to provide any kind of justification for poorly planned projects where scope creeps and timescales drift; it is simply stating that, in the real world, even the best planned and managed projects will have to cope with uncertainties and changes.
In addition to risks associated with your particular plan there are a range of risks that tend to beset any project in the education sector. These risks need to be addressed in the early stages of planning.
- Recruitment and retention of project staff
- Space and facilities for project team
- Part-time project staff who are distracted by the 'day job'
- Decision making processes unclear or very slow
- Involvement of consultants who are not familiar with the education sector
