| An important series of skills would be: 1. Identify every project dimension with risks. The big one: project -> use -> user -> reward -> costumer fit? (Where user and customer may, or may not be the same.) Price cost economics? Technical complexity? Technical experience shortfalls? Project resource availability? Solution resource efficiency? Safety? Third party dependencies? 2. Identify each significant risk in each risk dimension. 3. Identify the simplest question (or two) whose answer will reduce or eliminate each risk. 4. If a risk can’t be mitigated by answering a single question (or two), maybe it is really a combination of risks, or risk dimensions. If so break them out, repeat. 4. Craft the simplest research task to resolve each risk question. — This sequence is a special case of focusing energy on upstream tasks, before investing in downstream tasks. Or as I like to say: move slow to move fast. — A meta risk is loops in risk/work dependencies. Classic example: Stakeholder wants to see something working before you resolve risks of getting something working. Identify the simplest, sparsest form of a loop is one way forward. Alternatively, break the loop. Identify alternate ways to satisfy the stakeholder. Find a way to remove dependency on the stake holder (constructively). |