Description:

This one-day course covers an important business skill.

All change contains risks (uncertainty) and with the complexity of business change these risks can compound. It is therefore important that business risks are clearly stated so that they can be carefully monitored and managed. The project risks will be managed separately by the project manager. In fact an identifiable business risk is the mis-management of project risk. This course is intended to provide the business a reliable approach to managing business risk within change or project management.

This one-day course, based on current best practice, is intended to provide all the basic knowledge required for the application of risk. The process called the PRAM Guide produced by the Association for Project Management (APM) will be covered in the course. This is a straightforward process, easily learnt and put into practice. References are also made to other publications as appropriate. PRAM is a five point process:

• Define and Focus (linking PRAM to the business)
• Identification of Risk (discussion of methods)
• Risk Analysis
• Risk Planning
• Risk Management

The course is built around a real case study which is pre-course reading and provides ample opportunity to understand the concepts of risk in the context of a business planning for change. In the event of an in-house course, the case study can be easily replaced with an internal case study of your own choice. Based upon the case study there will be group and individual exercises aimed at anchoring the learning.

This is a practical course very much aimed at providing practical tools which can be used by each business manager in identifying their own risks and developing suitable strategies for managing those risks.

An Attendance Certificate will be provided at the end of this skill course.

Vital Benefits:

All change is associated with uncertainties and so risk management is fundamental to change management. This course is about the uncertainty which surrounds the business decision to go ahead with a change project: what are the business needs and assumptions? what could affect these resulting in the change being no longer viable? The course provides the following vital benefits:

• A complete understanding of the risk process as described in the PRAM Guide
• A clear practical guide to producing your own risk plan
• An understanding of the many ways risk can be identified
• An understanding of risk assessment and planning
• An introduction to the risk strategies for threats and opportunities
• A complete guide to qualitative analysis of risk
• The first step to developing a risk culture

Objectives:

Risk management is important and there are very few downsides of implementing a risk process. There does not seem to be any good reasons for not using risk management. In this course, it is our objectives to:

• Provide a sound understanding of the whole risk management process
• Explain the tools and techniques used in effective risk management
• Show how risk is managed in a typical business environment
• Use practical and interesting case studies which everyone can understand
• Discuss experiences and common obstacles to risk management
• Leave a blueprint for continuous risk management
• Reduce uncertainty and increase opportunity

Topics:

This course is based on the APM PRAM Guide. The topics of this course cover all relevant aspects of the guide as follows:

• The five step process of define and focus, identification of risks, analysis and planning of identified risks and finally the management of the process
• The development of the risk plan
• Identification methods, the assessment and the four strategies for managing threat and opportunity
• The tools of risk management and how they work
• A practical guide for the future

Who to Attend:

Practically everyone within the business who is likely to be impacted by the planned change should consider this course. Risk is often managed in an ad hoc way by business people who have had no formal risk training but think their efforts are “good enough”. Experience has shown that a formal approach to managing risk across the organisation will provide substantial benefits. So we recommend this course to:

• All senior business managers
• Stakeholders to the change
• All those who want to know more about managing business risk