Executive Summary
This paper discusses risk management in a web creation project. Risk management helps minimize the threats which can cause project failure and enables the project team to operate within the stipulated schedule, quality, and budget constraints. According to the PMBoK guide, risk management involves risk assessment and mitigation. Assessment involves risk identification and evaluation of the potential risks.
Risk Identification
Identification involves detecting the risks which can hinder the progress and success of a project. Identifying the potential hazards by category is one method used in this process. The risks are grouped based on the project constraints, including cost, quality, schedule, and cost (see Table 1).
Table 1: Project Risks and their Categories
When the risks have been identified, they can be recorded in a risk register like the one accompanying this paper. The excel document has a field for entering the likelihood of the risk occurring, ranging from 0 to 99%. It also includes the impact of the project’s risk when it happens on a scale of 1 to 5. Values in the risk score field are obtained by multiplying corresponding values in the Probability and Impact fields. A risk with the highest score is ranks above the others in the table. A column for appropriate actions to prevent and mitigate the risks is also included.
Risk Evaluation
A high score indicates a highly probable risk from the register, which has devastating effects on the project. According to the website creation project, the following factors were identified as the significant risks, based on their scores in the risk register:
- Inadequate website testing leads to customer complaints and profit loss.
- Design requirements influence its design costs whether implementing a pre-built theme or custom design.
The inadequate website testing risk, which results in user dissatisfaction and losses, was assigned a probability of 60% and a risk impact of 5. Since this is a factor with a high impact (of 5) on the project success, it was assigned a 60% chance of happening because the team is objective to prevent it from occurring. Evaluation reveals that if the risk occurs, it can affect the quality of the project. The impact would force the project team to redesign the website with regards to the client complaints. One of the risk responses suggested is to ensure that the concerned departments carry out quality checks and test the website functionalities before deploying it.
Costly design requirements were also identified as potential risks in the web development project, with a probability of 70% and an impact of 4. If it occurs, the factor can impact the project cost. Whether the team develops from scratch or uses web templates, user requirements can drive them to use expensive designs, increasing the project cost. To evade this risk, the team should perform a comprehensive requirement analysis. They can also use a cost-effective method to enable them to meet the stipulated project cost objectives.