Risk management: what's to know?

---

If you only know one thing about Risk Management, know this:

Schedule slack is your most powerful tool

Poorly developed instincts and skills in the use of this most powerful tool are leading causes of poor risk management

If you are a Systems person --- a strategic thinker; an integrator; a "it all has to work" person -- you'll translate schedule slack into to "loose coupling"

Loose coupling is your most powerful tool

This all sounds like schedule, but the side effects are profound (slack is like a nail; it works everywhere):

• Time is lost to effect design, manufacturing, or delivery mitigation
• Pressures mount to "do something"
• Short-cuts are taken
• The thing may not work at the end (oops, that's career limiting)

And, the list of slack misuse is relatively short, so everyone should be able to keep these bullets in mind:

•  It shall be: All schedules require slack; a schedule without slack is but a hope, and is risky all the way
  
• At the end: Slack is always sequenced after a risky event is to occur. NEVER put the slack first, hoping it will all go away
• Don't add risk unwittingly: Unnecessary coupling (to wit: bundling) just adds risk where there was none. Decouple everything; don't purposely couple anything. 

If you bundle (tightly couple) the statistics are against you:

• If two independent events have a 9-in-10 chance of success, then when tightly coupled and no slack between them, success of the pair is only 8-in-10, a loss of 10 points
• It gets worse fast: a pair with 7-in-10 chance of success degrades to less than 1-in-2. A loss of 20 points.  Good grief!

The effect of slack? NO loss of points .... a cheap way to fight  

---

Buy them at any online book retailer!