Space exploration is as close to pure risk as any of us can conceive. A rocket blows upon launch or it doesn’t. A space craft reaches its destination planet or it doesn’t. The craft lands safely on the planet surface or it doesn’t. We can easily envision these risks, and this makes the process of managing them relatively transparent. Even better, the risk management jargon needed to understand the risk management process is minimal. Mostly, this case requires a thorough reading and some deep thinking. What better way to introduce good risk management than with such a transparent example.
Should Gentry Lee delay or go forward with the Mars Biological Explorer (MBE) mission? This is, of course, the over-riding question for this case
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b. Evaluate and choose. How are the risks evaluated and the key risks selected?
c. Implement. Effective risk management allocates the greatest resources towards mitigating the most critical risks. How does Lee’s program accomplish this? Absent such a clearly defined allocation process, what might go wrong with a resource allocation process?
d. Monitor. Risk management is an ongoing process. Risks must be constantly monitored to ensure that mitigation strategies are working and emerging risks identified and communicated throughout to MBE Mission structure. What features of Lee’s program did this?
5. How does JPL balance the costs of risk with the costs of mitigating those risks? How does it balance the conflicting needs for control and creativity? How has it fostered the flow of information through the project teams?
6. Risk appetite and risk tolerance are two often bandied about but poorly defined terms in risk management. I recently came across the following definitions that I really like. Risk appetite is the total amount of risk a business is prepared to tolerate in its business, a reflection of the business’ capacity to absorb risk, e.g., the amount you can lose at casinos over an entire year. Risk tolerance drills down one level into a company’s operations to reflect the risk of a particular business unit, e.g., the amount you are willing to lose during one day at a casino. Given these definitions, what is JPL’s
Risk monitoring and control is the next step and involves the owners of the risks to monitor various risk triggers. This works by scanning the project environment for both identified and unidentified threats and opportunities much like a radar screen (Marchewka, 2009). This approach directly relates to how to respond to the risk. Risk response allows the owner of the risk to commit resources and take actions once the risk is known or opportunity is available. This action usually follows the planned risk strategy.
Risk is defined by the probability of injury, harm, loss or danger. We all take risks every day, and don’t even think about implications.
mitigation strategy for each risk. Kaplan and Mikes (2010) noted in the case study that Lee explained
Resources allocation, and risk assessments must be managed as part of the SM program. (Arnason, S, & Willett, K.D. 2008)
Risk mitigation would allow the project manager to know the project’s strengths and weaknesses then evaluate the threats facing the project. The project manager would implement different strategies such as lowering exposure to threats or improving strengths of the project to make sure that the variance in schedule and cost is not very high when there are risk event occurrences. A risk mitigation strategy ensures that the project manager, the implementing team, and the project’s stakeholders are on the same page in the project implementation job. It also gives the project team an opportunity to address risks in advance so resolving additional issues becomes easy when the issues occur later during the implementation of the project. Moreover, the risk management strategy would fine-tune the parameters used for measuring the results of the project (Kerzner,
However, companies generally adopt a methodology for overall risk assessment. Sometimes these methodologies involve the assignation of risk oversight to leaders in each area. The approach is based upon the assumption that each area knows itself best. However, this often overlooks potential issues in favor of confronting them after they develop. As the need for
Good risk assessment requires an elaborate plan. A risk management plan is a project management type that helps ensure that an organization reaches desired goals in a given project (Gibson, 2010). Like every plan, caution should be taken to make sure that goals of the assessment are achievable given the best accommodation of time and cost. This calls for organization to have a risk scope. Risk scope simply identifies the boundaries of a given risk assessment. This is
Background- In its most basic sense, risk management identifies, allows assessment, and prioritizes risks that are associated and central to an individual project or organization. Risk management allows the organization to be proactive in preventing or mitigating risks, for improving certain processes within the organization, and with the hope of preventing fiscal exposure. However, in almost every organization there are risks individuals are unique and do not always perform at a high level of safety; mechanical or design failures exist, construction projects have supply or labor issues, there are uncertainties in computer or data modification, of course natural disasters, and even deliberate attacks from competitors, etc. Because this is such a common occurrence, national and even international standards have been developed in conjunction with the insurance and regulatory institutions to at least provide basic guidelines to minimize risks risk (International Organization for Standardization, 2009).
(cite) explained that risk management is the decision-making process to identify threats, vulnerabilities, and impacts of the threats on business objectives. In the Blue Spider (BS) project, it was clear from the beginning that the organization did not manage risk properly. The problem began when Henry Gable, as the director of engineering, made the unethical decision to lie about the project specifications. The unethical decision by Gable would be the key reason of many risks faced by Gary Anderson throughout the project. Furthermore, (cite) explained that there are five risk response strategies that an organization could take. The strategies are listed as mitigating risk, avoiding risk, sharing risk, retaining risk, and transferring risk. It is clear that Anderson did not maintain risk assessment and response plan since the beginning of the project.
There was Risk Management Plan in place for NASA because there was risk assessment and protocols in place but due
The risk management process is iterative; therefore processes are handled in sequence (Phillips, 20090. Initially, the first phase of the Risk Management process is risk assessment, including risk identification and risk analysis. The next phase is risk response which decides what should be done about assessed risk (Seyedhoseini, SM; Hate, MA, 2009). The diagram below in Figure 1, illustrates the project’s risk management processes and procedures for this project.
Each undesirable event that might affect the success of the program (cost, schedule, productivity, quality and scope) should be identified and assessed as to the likelihood and consequence of occurrence. A standard format for evaluation and reporting program risk assessment findings helps to facilitate common understanding of program risks at all levels of management. The likelihood and consequence of occurrence for each identified risk will be assessed by the team identifying the risk, with assistance from the Program Risk Manager, where required using the following approach to evaluate the likelihood of occurrence and the impact of the risk on program objectives
“What’s the hurry” is a question that is asked a lot. “Mars isn’t going anywhere, so why should we commit hard pressed budgets for space exploration”? Even though mars isn’t going anywhere we still need to take the time and explore it. Anything can happen to us or mars or any other planet. By us waiting that’s us learning less about our planets and outer space by the minute and risking something happening. Another thing that people are saying is that space exploration is a waste of money. People are saying that space exploration is a waste of money but, many discoveries have been made with major space exploration. Something can always happen to earth, if we discover another planet that we can live on we would have a backup plan thanks to space exploration. Even though there are some downsides to major space exploration there are more good than bad reasons. So overall the major space exploration is an important and cool program to
Defined by Coopers textbook, risk is the exposure to the consequences of uncertainty and has two elements: the likelihood of something happening that has an impact on the project objectives, and the positive or negative consequences of something impacting the project objectives (Cooper, Grey, Raymond, & Walker, 2005)
One well accepted description of risk management is the following: risk management is a systematic approach to setting the best course of action under uncertainty by identifying, assessing, understanding, acting on and communicating risk issues. In order to apply risk management effectively, it is vital that a risk management culture be developed. The risk management culture supports the overall vision, mission and objectives of an organization. Limits and boundaries are established and communicated concerning what are acceptable risk practices and outcomes. Since risk management is directed at uncertainty related to future events and outcomes, it is