11.5 Plan Risk Responses

Decide, for each significant risk, what you will actually do about it.

Planning / Risk · ← PMBOK reference · See it on the map

Why it matters

A risk that is identified and scored but has no plan attached is still just a worry; this is the step that turns it into an action someone owns.

What done looks like

Every significant risk has an assigned response strategy and an owner.

First time tip

Name a single owner for each response, not a team. A response owned by everyone tends to be actioned by no one.

What you need (Inputs)

• Risk Management Plan
• Risk Register
• Risk Report
• Cost Baseline
• Resource Management Plan
  How Scrum/Kanban projects satisfy this — counted from: project roles (driftless/models/agile.py:ProjectRole) — naming who holds each agile role (product owner, Scrum Master, developer, stakeholder proxy) is how an agile team plans its resources, in place of the stored prose plan a predictive project writes
• Lessons Learned Register
  How Scrum/Kanban projects satisfy this — counted from: sprint retrospective evidence (driftless/models/delivery.py:Sprint) — a sprint closed with retrospective notes is a lesson captured, the way a predictive project files one as prose

How you do it (Tools & Techniques)

• Expert Judgment
• Data Gathering
• Interpersonal and Team Skills
• Strategies for Threats
• Strategies for Opportunities
• Contingent Response Strategies
• Strategies for Overall Project Risk
• Decision Making

What you get (Outputs)

• Change Requests
• Risk Register
• Risk Report

Worked example

For the storm the committee books a marquee that covers the stage and names the site manager as its owner; for a cancellation it agrees a standby local act and names the bookings volunteer; for the late toilets it decides to accept the risk and says so in the register. Each response carries one name and a date by which it has to be in place.

Common pitfalls

• Writing "monitor the weather" as a response, which is a plan to keep worrying rather than a plan to act.
• Assigning a response to the committee as a whole, so nobody actually makes the booking.
• Planning only against threats and ignoring a bigger crowd than expected, which also needs a decision.

How driftless helps

• Strategies for Threats can be run here.
• Strategies for Opportunities can be run here.
• Contingent Response Strategies can be run here.
• Strategies for Overall Project Risk can be run here.
• Risk Register can be created in the wizard.