Running a Risk Meeting
The Product Owner can decide when to call for a risk meeting. It will include the Scrum team and any stakeholders that can help with assessing, prioritizing and mitigating risks. While we are only discussing assessment here, deciding on the priorities and agreeing on mitigations can also be handled in the same meeting. The risks to be assessed should have been listed in no particular order, and can be added to the risk register toward the end of the meeting. The risk register is a list of all the risks that have been identified, their severity, and the mitigations to be applied. Once the new risks have been handled, the risk register should be revisited to see if the risk level and the priority has changed on each risk. An updated risk register, with the new risks and revised prioritization, can be issued to all stakeholders.
How to Assess Risk Using Probability and Impact
When assessing a risk, the following factors are evaluated:-
- Probability (P)– this is the scale of likelihood of a risk occurring
- Impact (I) – this is the magnitude of the effect the risk will have on the project
The risk severity (S) is calculated thus :- S = P x I
There are various scales applied to measuring P and I, such as a scale of 1 to 10, or a percentage, that vary from company to company, but the outcome is still a severity score that can be used to prioritize the risk.
A third factor that is not always considered, but can be very relevant is when the risk can be expected to turn into an issue or event. This is called “Proximity” in Scrum. A good example is the “100-year flood”, which is a severe flood that occurs every 100 years, and is used to decide how far structures should be built from a river bank to stay safe. If it has been 95 years since the last flood, chances are good that the next one is on its way.
As most Agile projects are planned to be of short duration, proximity risk can generally be avoided, although it should be considered for large projects with a longer lifespan.
There are a few other ways of assessing risk described below, but this is the most common method used in most methodologies at most companies. It is also the approach taken in ISO 31000. You might wish to explore some alternative methods to see if the risk severity changes when you approach things from a different angle.
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