Week 8 Discussion – Scope Creep Is Good

   Please respond to the following:

• In  many risk programs, risks are managed individually. A robust risk  program, however, considers the cumulative effect of all risks. Assess  the following scenario and identify the effect of multiple events on a  risk management strategy:
  • When the Titanic struck the iceberg,  the weather was bad, the lookouts were not properly equipped, the radio  operator was not monitoring other ship traffic in the area, and the ship  design had a major flaw in the construction of the hull's "watertight"  compartments.

Be sure to respond to at least one of your classmates' posts.

Respond to student below

Thomas Gutche         

Wednesday Aug 23 at 11:10pm          

Hello Dr. Marion and Classmates

This week's discussion looks at risk planning for multiple events vs. managing risk individually. The scenario of the sinking of the Titanic was a barrage of bad events happening simultaneously. The  probability of all those issues and the negative impact happening  simultaneously would have been low on a risk probability and impact  matrix. Even each individual one would have had a low probability, with some having a high impact (i.e., weather or design flaws). Even  with low probability, the project should have identified the potential  weather issues, design defects, and staff not following policy. Risk happening one at a time or all at once must be considered in risk planning.

Regardless of whether one risk event materialized or multiple, risk  responses could have been created and helped mitigate some of the impact  of the risk events that happened that night. The bad weather response could have been ‘accept,’ knowing that open oceans can be unpredictable. Accepting potential bad weather could have triggered more training for the crew on how to run the ship in bad weather. The  risk response for the radio operator could have used a ‘mitigation’  response on policies being always created to have two staff on duty. If one stepped away without reason, there would always be a second. The  ship design response could have been a ‘transfer’ strategy, and the  shipbuilder could have hired an independent contractor to inspect the  hull design and potentially discover the flaw and request a change in  design. Responding to the multiple risks could have had a  positive chain reaction that reduced the probability of additional  events happening on the ship.

The project team managing the Titanic would have had to have been  diligent in the monitoring and control phase to continue accessing the  risk register and add/reevaluate new risks as they became known. New  risks could have been identified by other ships experiencing impacting  events that the Titanic crew didn’t know about when first assessing risk  at project initiation.

Feedback welcomed. I hope everybody has a great week!