A Risk is an uncertain event, if it occurs there may be a positive or negative impact on the project objectives. Positive Risks are called “Opportunities” and Negative Risks are called “Threats”. Most of us will always only focus on the negative risks and often forget to leverage the opportunities that positively help the Project.

Whether you are doing a project in a traditional waterfall or Agile methods like Scrum, risks are always common. However, the way those risks are managed may differ between traditional way and agile way of project delivery.

Continuous focus on Risks:

In Agile projects, the value is delivered frequently and continuously to the customers. So there may be risks continuously occurring throughout the project. Hence, making the Risk Management a continuous will help to tackle them effectively. So it is good to spare some time to discuss the Risks in Release Planning, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective even in the Product Backlog Refinement. This helps the Scrum Team to proactively identify the Risks and able to identify the possible responses. Proactive Risk management will always help to reduce major impacts on the project objectives.

How to identify Risks:

Brainstorming is an effective technique to identify Risks. During the Scrum events, keeping a focused discussion with a timeboxed duration for Risks will help Scrum Teams to identify the Risks. Every person on the Scrum Team should contribute in identifying all possible opportunities and threats. That means, the entire Scrum team is responsible to identify the risks proactively. Focusing on certain areas as listed below to identify the Risks will also be helpful.

  • Availability of Team members (Resignations, Leaves or moving people across different Projects etc)
  • Probable delays in getting information from stakeholders or other teams
  • Infrastructure related risks (software, hardware etc)
  • Process related risks (Licenses, approvals, procurements, installations etc)
  • Environment-related risks (Pandemics, weather etc)
  • Communication-related risks (especially when multiple teams working on the same project)

Prioritise the Risks:

Creating a highly visible list of Risks with a priority assigned (may be using DOT voting on the probability of occurrence) will help the Scrum Team to manage them effectively. Also, let the team take ownership of the Risks based on their relevance. Frequent review of the Risks and the status of their occurrence, impact and closure updated to the entire team will enhance transparency. Categorize the Risks based on certain categories (example: probability of occurrence, Level of Impact, Top X ranked etc). Prioritize the High risks on the top of the Product Backlog will help you to fail fast and fail safe.

Response plans:

Focus on the higher order risks and create response plans to address them. Involving the entire team will help them to explore multiple options to address the risks. Identifying a trigger point for each risk will help to identify when the risk may occur so that the corresponding response plan can be applied. 

Monitoring the Risks:

Throughout the Project, keep the Risks list updated with the latest information. Removal of outdated Risks, updating the trigger points, priority of existing Risks, updating response plans, revisiting the impact of the Risks should be part of the Risk monitoring. Creating a Risk burndown chart will be helpful in visualizing the risks and effectively managing them.

So, keeping an eye on the possible opportunities and threats throughout the project will help the Scrum Teams to effectively manage the risks