Risk management
On this page 9 topics
Overview
Topics
- Dependency risk
- technical uncertainty
- contingency planning
Learn first
3 h of practice (estimate)
Learning outcomes
- Identify technical, dependency, people, and schedule risks in a program.
- Maintain a risk register with likelihood, impact, owner, and trigger.
- Reduce uncertainty early with spikes, prototypes, and staged commitments.
- Prepare contingency plans and decide when to invoke them.
Lessons
Lab and exercises
Lab
SRB-019-LAB1 · Program risks
Outcomes: 1–4 · Time: ~3 h
- Run a pre-mortem and build the risk register for the FulfillCo program across technical, dependency, people, and schedule categories, with owners and triggers.
- Plan spikes or staged commitments for the riskiest items.
- Write contingency plans for the top three risks with invocation thresholds.
- The assessor triggers one risk mid-lab; respond.
Acceptance: response follows the plan or justifies deviation.
Exercises (assessment: risk-response simulation)
| ID | Outcome | Task |
|---|---|---|
| SRB-019-EX01 | 1 | Run a pre-mortem on the FulfillCo program and list at least eight risks across the four categories. |
| SRB-019-EX02 | 2 | Convert five risks into register rows with likelihood, impact, owner, and trigger. |
| SRB-019-EX03 | 2 | Case: a register has 60 risks, no owners, and was last updated four months ago. Write the repair plan. |
| SRB-019-EX04 | 3 | Choose a spike for the risk "stock sync cannot keep up with peak load": question, time box, decision enabled. |
| SRB-019-EX05 | 3 | Propose a staged commitment for the program so that stage two is approved after three risks fall. |
| SRB-019-EX06 | 4 | Write a contingency card for "legacy warehouse expert leaves", including trigger and cost. |
| SRB-019-EX07 | 4 | Case: the trigger of a top risk fires on a Friday. Write the decision memo with options and your recommendation. |
Show solutions
- EX01 Examples: warehouse data quality (technical), API not ready (dependency), single expert (people), fixed launch date (schedule), security review queue (dependency), unclear event ownership, migration backfill load, vendor contract delay.
- EX02 Each row has one owner and an observable trigger, such as "contract unsigned by week 3".
- EX03 Cut to the top ten, assign owners, add triggers, set a monthly review, and archive closed items.
- EX04 Question: can the sync path handle peak volume; run a load spike for three days; decision: events or batch.
- EX05 Stage one covers discovery and key spikes; the exit check is that top risks fall below an agreed score; stage two commits the build.
- EX06 Trigger: resignation or long absence; actions: documentation sprint now, pairing with a second engineer, vendor support; cost: time and training.
- EX07 Options: invoke contingency, wait with a short deadline, or re-plan; recommend per the threshold in the card; state impact and ask.
- Outcome 1 is also covered by the lab pre-mortem.
Workplace evidence: a risk you identified early and the action it led to.
Quiz
Outcomes: O1 identifying risks · O2 risk registers · O3 reducing uncertainty early · O4 contingency planning.
A self-check for you: nothing is graded, saved or sent anywhere. Choose an answer, then check it. You can try again as often as you like.
Practical part
Complete the risk-response simulation (SRB-019-LAB1, SRB-019 assessment), where the assessor triggers one risk. Pass: at least 8/10 on the quiz, a register with owners and triggers, and a response that follows the contingency plan or justifies the deviation.
Common mistakes
Registers written once; risks without owners or triggers.
Assessment
Risk-response simulation.
Workplace evidence
A risk you identified early and the action it led to.
Career relevance
Decision-making under uncertainty (SRA-013) and architecture risk registers (ARC-043).