Risk Management

Book excerpt: A review for the book from another world renown author.Rita Mulcahy, PMP, is an author, consultant and member of the Project Management Institute's Risk Management Special Interest Group. Either through frustration at the lack of good, practical risk management reference materials, or because she is bubbling over with ideas on the subject, Rita has written a comprehensive book: "Risk Management - Tricks of the Trade? for Project Managers." The book is structured according to the Institute's view of project risk management and is therefore supportive of the Project Management Professional certification exam. It even has a 50-question Final Exam in the certification examination mode.However, Rita's book is much more than that. It provides a very clear and down-to-earth explanation of what project risk management is all about. I was particularly pleased to see an emphasis on things going right (opportunities enhancement) as well as going wrong (risks). The book is lavishly endowed with bulleted lists of explanation for rapid absorption of content by busy project people. It also has very practical quick-read "Tricks of the Trade" sidebars (e.g. How to interview an expert), check lists, charts, forms and how to use them with worked examples. It is even topped off with quiz games to make it a fun encounter.For University instructors and training workshop leaders there are plenty of "Questions for discussion". In an appendix there is a long list of potential risks, their cause and effect in various industries. No doubt that list has been culled from the brainstorming efforts of many of Rita's workshop attendees over the years. Still, I could not help but empathize with chagrin the construction risk-cause entry "Local politicos, unruly elements, etc." Well said!Armed with this book, there should be no excuse any longer for anyone to declare that they don't know how to apply risk management to their projects, however large or small their projects may be. Nor should there be any question of how to get started or even why they should get started and when. The real benefit of the book is that it demonstrates very clearly that project risk management does not have to be difficult, nor academically challenging. I have always held that project risk management is really very simple.When you are gearing up for your next project, the best advice I can give is "Don't leave home without it!"R. Max Wideman, P.Eng.FCSCE, FEIC, FICE, FPMI