Risk Response Planning

The Risk Response Planning domain of the Risk Management Framework is the third largest domain in terms of the no. of questions it contributes to the RMP Certification Exam. As seen in the introductory chapter on the Risk Management Framework, the exam objectives of this domain are:

a. Develop a Risk Response Strategy
b. Develop a Contingency Approach & Plan
c. Present the Recommendations to Key Stakeholders

Let us say you are the project manager for a project and the warning signs have appeared that a risk is about to happen, what will you do? This is exactly what this domain is all about.

The exam objectives are only 3 in number and may be deceptive that this domain is easy. But as with the other domains, these 3 objectives cover a lot of ground. As you may have guessed by now (If you are a PMP or atleast have read the PMBOK guide) that much of this chapter is centered around the “Plan Risk Response” chapter of the PBMBOK Guide. In the series on PMP Exam Preparation, we had covered this topic in great detail. You can click here to access the chapter on Planning Risk Responses

In order to develop a good Risk Response Plan, you first need to understand the types of strategies you can use for Negative & Positive Risks. Do you know what these Negative & Positive Risks are and how to differentiate between the two? This is one of those basic pre-requisites you need to know before you can actually manage risks for any project. You also need to understand the concepts of Secondary and Residual risks.

Trivia:

A Negative Risk is one that affects a project in a negative way (Like causing delays, bugs, monetary losses etc).
A Positive Risk is one that affects a project in a positive way (Improving schedule, monetary benefits etc).

In order to efficiently execute this domain, a project manager needs to know about:

a. Contingency Plans
b. Contingency Reserves
c. Fallback Plans
d. Workarounds
e. Various Risk Response Techniques
f. Interpreting Risk Related Data

As with other domains, we will be taking a detailed look at all the exam objectives of this domain in future…

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