Project Risk Assessment
Project Name
Project Manager
Project Assistant
1. Resouce Risks
1.1 Organisational Risk
Is the project organization documented and on file?
Is the project manager qualified and experienced in project management of this scale?
Have roles and responsibilities been documented?
Have roles and responsibilities been clearly communicated?
Is the organization structure appropriate for the project size and complexity?
Is there an obvious team leader?
Is the quality role identified and assigned?
Is the project sponsor identified and assigned?
Is there a change control board?
Have configurations management functions been assigned?
Are there backup strategies for key members of the project?
1.2 People Risk
Are there enough skilled and experienced employees/vendors/contractors available for the project?
Has the project team a track record of delivering projects on time, quality and budget?
Do the project team feel as if the project is achievable given constraints in place?
Are prospects/customers involved in periodic reviews of the project through its development?
Is there sufficient contingency access to subject matter experts throughout each stage of the project?
1.3 Finance Risk
Is funding adequate and sufficient for the size of the project?
Has any funding been assigned to training and mentoring activities?
Are there predefined budget limitations that would result in project termination?
Are project costs realistic given the size, complexity and scale?
1.4 Schedule Risk
Is the project schedule realistic?
Have dependencies been fully understood, communicated and documented?
Has a critical path been defined?
Have milestones and associated reviews been agreed and planned into program schedule?
Has “Project Terminated” criteria been discussed, agreed and documented in relation to each key milestone?
2. Business Risk
Identified potential risks of a competitor entering the market first?
Assess the risk to project funding and management support?
Have financial benefits of the project relative to costs been defined, demonstrated, agreed upon, and documented?
Are there any major issues to be resolved in the company at the moment?
3. Technical Risk
Scope risks
Technological Risks
4. Planning
Is project scope the same as agreed in the project charter?
Has the project scope statement been reviewed and approved?
Is there a project plan to measure progress?
Does the project plan address at a minimum:
Project scope and deliverables
Work breakdown structure
Task dependencies
Project schedule
Milestone schedule
Project budget
Quality plan
Issue resolution and change management
Risk management plan
Does the project plan address at an advanced level:
Critical success factors
Resource plan – assignment and timings
Cost-benefit analysis
Procurement plan
Communication plan
Configuration management plan
Phase exit plan
Project tracking agreement
Project organisation
Facilities plan
Documentation plan
Materials plan
Training plan
Back-up and recovery plan
Contingency plan
Go live plan
Warranty plan
Transition plan
Is plan for project resources adequate?
Are baseline project schedule and budget realistic?
Is the plan for the organisation of resources adequate?
Are there adequate project control systems?
Is there a central storage for project documentation?
Are key stakeholders bought into the project plan?
Are potential customers involved in the planning process?
Was planning complete before the project was initiated?
Are documents subject to revision control?
Have vendors signed off on the project plan?
Has an independent oversight contractor signed off on the project plan?
5. Tracking and Monitoring
Are the report contents, frequency, and audience defined and communicated to the project team?
Are the input requirements from the project team clearly documented and communicated?
Have reports to be produced, distributed, and filed been defined?
Has the format for tracking and monitoring schedules and costs been defined?
6. Reviewing
Have meetings, purpose, context, frequency, and participants been defined?
What information is required for each meeting?
Are meetings set-up with assigned note-takers to add actions/issues?
7. Issue Management
Is the issue management process documented and defined?
Has this process been communicated to customers and team members?
Is there an easy way for anyone to raise an issue?
Is there a means of tracking and managing issues through to resolution?
Is there a means of learning from issues raised to minimize future issues?
Is there an escalation process to address unresolved issues?
8. Change Control
Is there a change control process in place?
Is the change control process documented and available to the team?
Has the process been discussed and shared with the customer and project team?
Has the change request process been discussed and communicated with customers and project team?
Is all change to be managed through a change control process?
How are change requests logged, managed, assessed and actioned?
9. Dispute Resolution
Has the negotiation process been defined?
Has the mediation process been defined?
Has the arbitration process been agreed upon and defined?
Has the litigation process and boundaries been defined?
10. Risk Management
Are all risks managed according to the project's risk management process?
Will the risk plan be reviewed and updated regularly and frequently?
Will risk status be reported to management on a regular and frequent basis?
Are there documented contingencies for the top 5 risks?
Have the contingencies for the top 5 risks been discussed with the customer and project team?
11. Quality Assurance
Has the quality assurance plan been documented and filed?
Are the QA functions and related roles and responsibilities clearly defined?
Are completion/verification criteria defined for each task producing an output?
Are there test plans, inspections, reviews defined for verifying outputs to each task?
Will QA have final sign-off on tasks successfully completed?
Is there a formal system to manage submitting, logging, tracking, reporting through the change, test, submit, restest process?
Is there a process that allows QA statistics to be collated, assessed with any subsequent issues logged and addressed?
