Building a Risk Register: some Fundamentals
Risk management and the associated processes are commonly applied in most business units within most organizations, so the principles of defining a risk and prioritizing it should be known to most members of the Agile team. In the case where they have never taken part in a risk meeting before, it may be necessary to explain the following basic concepts to the team members.
- the difference between a risk (something that may happen) and an issue (something that has happened and which now must be managed).
- Probability – the likelihood of a risk becoming an issue, expressed as a percentage.
- Impact – the severity of the consequences if a risk is not mitigated. Traditionally, this is a number between 1 and 10, or 1 and 5 expressing severity, but you can also express impact in other ways, such as the number of days to be lost if the event occurs.
- The risk rating or risk exposure. This is the value returned in the equation
Exposure = Probability * Impact.
- Mitigation – the actions to be taken to lessen or remove a risk, where possible. Mitigations are best identified and described by a subject matter expert.
- Ownership – A risk is usually allocated to a risk owner, whose job it is to ensure that the risk does not turn into an event.
- Risk Register – a list of risks, probability, impact, exposure and mitigations. This register is reviewed weekly as the exposure of the risks should change on a regular basis. Ideally, the exposure should reduce, but if it increases, it may be necessary to take some evasive action.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course:
Course Contents
Section 1: Agile Project Management
Section 2: Using the Agile Manifesto to Deliver Change
Section 3: The 12 Agile Principles
Section 4: The Agile Fundamentals
Section 5: The Declaration of Interdependence
Section 6: Agile Development Frameworks
Section 7: Introduction to Scrum
Section 8: Scrum Projects
Section 9: Scrum Project Roles
Section 10: Meet the Scrum Team
Section 11: Building the Scrum Team
Section 12: Scrum in Projects, Programs & Portfolios
Section 13: How to Manage an Agile Project
Section 14: Leadership Styles
Section 15: The Agile Project Life-cycle
Section 16: Business Justification with Agile
Section 17: Calculating the Benefits With Agile
Section 18: Quality in Agile
Section 19: Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 20: Quality Management in Scrum
Section 21: Change in Scrum
Section 22: Integrating Change in Scrum
Section 23: Managing Change in Scrum
Section 24: Risk in Scrum
Section 25: Risk Assessment Techniques
Section 26: Initiating an Agile Project
Section 27: Forming the Scrum Team
Section 28: Epics and Personas
Section 29: Creating the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 30: Conduct Release Planning
Section 31: The Project Business Case
Section 32: Planning in Scrum
Section 33: Scrum Boards
Section 34: Sprint Planning
Section 35: User Stories
Section 36: User Stories and Tasks
Section 37: The Sprint Backlog
Section 38: Implementation of Scrum
Section 39: The Daily Scrum
Section 40: The Product Backlog
Section 41: Scrum Charts
Section 42: Review and Retrospective
Section 43: Scrum of Scrums
Section 44: Validating a Sprint
Section 45: Retrospective Sprint
Section 46: Releasing the Product
Section 47: Project Retrospective
Section 48: The Communication Plan
Section 49: Formal Business Sign-off
Section 50: Scaling Scrum
Section 51: Stakeholders
Section 52: Programs and Portfolios