Making decisions in a situation of total certainty is a piece of cake. Unfortunately, project management can involve a lot of risk and uncertainty and very little cake. In Project Management, Risk is an uncertain event that, if it occurs has positive or negative effect on one or more project objectives. Managing risk is an ongoing effort which requires a Project Manager to update the Risk Register, as more information becomes available to ensure informed decision making. The PMP® exam will expect you to know what plan components and project documents to reference. The below list may seem quite exhaustive, but remember risk can come from any aspect of the project!
The four categories of documents you can look at (and relevant information from each category) are:
Project Management plan elements
- Risk Management plan
- Cost Management plan
- Schedule Management plan
- Quality Management plan
- Human Resource Management plan
- Scope baseline
- Schedule baseline
- Budget
Project documents
- Project charter
- Stakeholder register
- Cost estimates
- Duration estimates
- Network diagram
- Assumption log
- Issue log
- Performance reports
- Earned Value reports
- Resource requirements
- Procurement documents
Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEFs)
- Benchmarks
- Industry information
- Studies, white papers, and research
- Risk attitudes
Organizational process assets (OPAs)
- Risk registers from past projects
- Lessons learned
Download your free Risk Register form guide (with key terms) below:
