Four steps to identifying and managing project risks

Some IT consultants overlook risk identification and management, especially on small engagements. Brad Egeland says this oversight could cost you future business.

I’ve run some projects as an internal PM and others as a consultant brought in to either lead a team or perform the work myself.

The way you run engagements will differ somewhat based on your incoming status (employee vs. consultant) and the size of the effort (long-term software implementation vs. short-term consulting gig to implement new processes).

There can also be differences in how you put together the upfront formal planning documents, and the way you formalize and document requirements.

One variable that remains constant regardless of whether you’re an internal or an external project lead is the task of risk identification and risk management. I’ll address the topic of risk below from a consultant’s perspective.

Step one: Identify risks

You’re coming in cold and don’t know the potential risks of the organizational infrastructure, procedures, and personnel. Be careful not to make assumptions before you have all of the facts; otherwise, you can wind up adding more risk.

Even if it’s a one-on-one engagement with the CIO or project sponsor, it’s critical that you run through a risk identification process during a detailed risk planning session.

(The CIO is your best source of initial information.) The onus is on you to ask good questions, because you’re the expert on consulting engagements and can warn the client about the common pitfalls they might encounter. You’re coming in cold and don’t know the potential risks of the organizational infrastructure, procedures, and personnel.

Be careful not to make assumptions before you have all of the facts; otherwise, you can wind up adding more risk.

Step two: Talk to SMEs and users

The next step is to meet with subject matter experts and end users (if these are different people) and any other personnel who will interact with the solution to a significant degree. These individuals can be good resources when you’re trying to identify potential risks.

Step three: Devise risk strategies

You need to work with the project sponsor, the SMEs, and users to determine and document the best strategy to mitigate or even avoid these risks if they arise.

Even if you can’t formulate a detailed risk response to each item, it will still be helpful to identify a strategy to keep in mind as you continue to track these risks.

Step four: Manage risk and provide regular status updates

I’m a proponent of managing consulting engagements on an ongoing basis like you would on a formal long-term project.

I encourage you to conduct weekly status meetings with the client, during which you should provide a revised task schedule and status report. Your risk list should be part of every weekly status report during.

Conclusion

We may not always conduct smaller consulting engagements with the same formality as we would $2 million dollar projects for Fortune 500 companies, but the need to identify and manage risks is still there.

It’s worth the time and effort because mitigating even one risk could mean the difference between success and failure and might land you future business with the client.

H5N1: Influenza detector gene stops virus transmission to humans

Katharine Magor, a U of A associate professor of biology, has identified the genetic detector that allows ducks to live, unharmed, as the host of influenza.

The duck's virus detector gene, called retinoic acid inducible gene -- I, or RIG-I, enables a duck's immune system to contain the virus, which typically spreads from ducks to chickens, where it mutates and can evolve to be a human threat like the H5N1 influenza virus.

The first human H5N1 cases were in Hong Kong in 1997. Eighteen people with close contact to chickens became infected and six died.

Magor's research shows chickens do not have a RIG-I gene. A healthy chicken can die within 18 hours after infection, but researchers have successfully transferred the RIG-I gene from ducks to chicken cells. The chicken's defenses against influenza were augmented and RIG-I reduced viral replication by half.

One potential application of this research could affect the worldwide poultry industry by production of an influenza-resistant chicken created by transgenesis.

The work of Katharine Magor, her U of A PhD candidate Megan Barber, and researchers from the United States (Jerry Aldridge and Robert Webster) was published March 22, in the online, early edition of Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences.

For further information check out the Univeristy of Alberta website

WiFi Direct has the potential to kill off Bluetooth

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced a new wireless networking specification which will enable devices to establish simple peer-to-peer wireless connections without the need for a wireless router or hotspot. Wi-Fi Direct has a wide array of potential uses, many of which encroach on Bluetooth territory and threaten to make the competing wireless protocol obsolete.

The new spec, previously referred to by the codename 'Wi-Fi peer-to-peer' (does it count as a 'codename' if it is just called what it is in the simplest possible terms?), will be finalized soon and the Wi-Fi Alliance expects to begin certifying devices as Wi-Fi Direct compliant by mid-2010.

"Wi-Fi Direct represents a leap forward for our industry. Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn't available," said Wi-Fi Alliance executive director Edgar Figueroa. "The impact is that Wi-Fi will become even more pervasive and useful for consumers and across the enterprise."

In theory peer-to-peer wireless networking already exists. In addition to connecting to wireless routers or hotspot networks, many wireless devices are capable of creating an ad hoc network-- basically a peer-to-peer wireless network between two devices.

Ad hoc wireless networking has always been more complex and cumbersome than it is worth, and it maxes out at 11 Mbps. Wi-Fi Direct will connect at existing Wi-Fi speeds -- up to 250 Mbps. Wi-Fi Direct devices will also be able to broadcast their availability and seek out other Wi-Fi Direct devices.

Wi-Fi Direct devices can connect in pairs or in groups. With Wi-Fi Direct only one of the devices needs to be compliant with Wi-Fi Direct to establish the peer-to-peer connection. So, for example, a Wi-Fi Direct-enabled mobile phone could establish a connection with a non-Wi-Fi Direct notebook computer to transfer files between the two.

Wi-Fi Direct overlaps into Bluetooth territory. Bluetooth is a virtually ubiquitous technology used for wireless connection of devices like headphones, mice, or the ever-popular Bluetooth earpiece sticking out of everyone's head. Bluetooth uses less power, but also has a much shorter range and slower transfer speeds. Wi-Fi Direct can enable the same device connectivity as Bluetooth, but at ranges and speeds equivalent to what users experience with existing Wi-Fi connections.

There are potential security concerns that come with a technology like Wi-Fi Direct. Bluetooth has been the subject of security issues like Bluejacking which enables an attacker to connect anonymously with an insecure Bluetooth device and hijack it or compromise its data. Bluejacking is only a threat in a radius of 20 or 30 feet. Wi-Fi ranges are much greater which opens the possibility of attackers making anonymous connections from the parking lot or across the street.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, which includes members like Cisco and Intel, is aware of the security concerns as well as the risks Wi-Fi Direct could introduce for enterprise networks. Wi-Fi Direct will include support for WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2) and AES encryption for more secure connections and measures are being developed to enable IT admins to exert some control over Wi-Fi Direct networks within their environment.