Good project control can manage risks without harming progress. But it requires that risk assessment and control should have an important role in the development culture of firms. Whether a project is intended to make a substantial change to the business, or simply to Web-enable an existing application, or develop an application to support a set of business methods or processes, the principles of project management are the same. However, the relative importance, time and resources assigned to each project differ greatly. All projects face constraints and risks, some can be anticipated and others not.
Risks arise from both internal and external influences.
Although uncertainty cannot be completely eliminated, an experienced programme manager will identify, minimise and manage risks to keep them at an acceptable level. This is achieved by eliminating or avoiding certain problems, and by identifying and reducing uncertainty as early as possible in the project development cycle. Cost benefits Research shows that if costs, problems and risks are not identified and minimised or removed early in project development, the cost of removing or fixing them increases exponentially as time passed. So it is surprising that so many firms still react to the consequences of risks, rather than proactively analysing, recording, managing and controlling them. Every project has at least one deliverable, a deadline, a set of acceptance criteria and an end client.