INNOVATIONS AND INSIGHTS
Consider the recent news headlines –
WHY PROJECT MANAGEMENT GREW OUT OF THE NEED TO CONTROL RISK
Banking, Health, Infrastructure, Transport,
HOW MANY ORGANISATIONS HAVE YOU SEEN THAT DO NOT MANAGE RISK WELL, ESPECIALLY PROJECT RISK?
Governments, Travel. They’ve all experienced failures in risk management. Most organisations have a corporate risk management framework, but this tends to be targeted at controlling executive level risks. And where safety is involved, they can be great at handling the operational risks. Unfortunately, when it comes to projects, people tend to be poor at evaluating risk. Part of this is down to our brains not being good at probabilities and reacting intuitively when presented with risks. Because of this, risk management tends to play a supporting role in projects, which is a concern as risk management is why project management exists. Along the way, we have lost sight of the Why of project management, and the What and the How have gained prominence. Long before project management, the management of risk grew and matured out of the desire to invest in new ventures. The success (although some say failing) of the human race comes from the ability to innovate, change and do things differently. This requires investment in people, time, resources and money. But true success comes from understanding and assessing the risks of a new venture – what are the opportunities and threats?
When risk isn’t considered, we put success down to luck, and failure to lack of common sense – and the extreme consequence of this as “Darwinism in action”.
(Source: Canva)
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