We all manage risks in a project and ensure we track them in every review meeting. We perform Risk analysis and come up with appropriate risk response strategies to mitigate or avoid them. But how often do we realize that risks can be positive as well. We call them opportunities. Way back in the earlier days of my carrier, I remember how we were conditioned to think about risks as negative. When I read the PMBOK and was introduced to the best practices in project management, is when I realized the concept of ‘positive risks’ or ‘opportunities’ and its importance.
The importance of ‘positive risks’ can never be underestimated. These positive risks are present everywhere in our projects, but we fail to identify them due to the fact that our entire focus is on finding negative risks that are detrimental to our projects. However, little do we realize that at many times the positive risks can help us even overcome some of the negative risks!
Let us take, for example a software project that involves software development, Functional and Automation Testing, and finally deployment of the product developed into the client’s premises.
While, there will be many negative risks such as:
- Too many bugs,
- Delay in the development phase due to complexity that was not foreseen earlier,
- The product failing to run at the client’s environment etc.,
The same problems can be eliminated by identifying the positive risks.
The positive risks here could be e.g.,
- Finding a better design to eliminate major performance issues,
- Better coding standards and discipline to eliminate bugs,
- Better or innovative processes to help release the product on time,
- Early assessment of the client’s environment or coming up with innovative ideas to overcome the limitation of launching certain executables in the client’s side.
There are times when one cannot help but delay the project due to certain complex bugs in the product. But, the delay can be converted into an opportunity if it is synced up with another product launch which complements the developed product, for which the marketing team can be reached to. Though this may not be the case all the time, but looking for such opportunities can help transform the project into a successful one.
Another example that comes across my mind is from the construction industry. The opportunity of constructing a large community living homes can be shared by multiple constructors in case one constructor does not have the financial strength to work in such a huge project. Also, the pricing of individual houses can be reduced to the extent of providing reasonably priced houses to the end consumers.
Though positive risks do not always negate the negative risks, they can be identified and then leveraged, shared or utilized to achieve benefits in the project execution.
So, how do we go about finding positive risks?
It involves the same processes that we follow in managing the negative risks. Just that, we need to be creative, look around the project to identify positive risks, and follow the processes with certain amount of discipline.