Important Terms - Plan Risk Responses

The Plan Risk Responses process was fairly complicated and is extremely vital in successful risk management in our Project. So, before we move on to the next topic and start looking at the outputs of the process, let us quickly cover the important terms we learnt in this section. 

The purpose of this chapter is to prevent or rather avoid any confusion or misunderstanding to anyone who is reading this series because some of these terms may be quite confusing. 

Risk Triggers: 

• Are warning signs or symptoms
• Provide a warning that  a risk is about to occur
• Provides a heads-up to the risk management team to handle the risk
• Tells the team when to execute the risk response or contingency plan

Residual Risk

• Those risks that are expected to remain after the planned responses have been executed
• May include risks that have been accepted

Trivia: 

Even when a risk is accepted or placed in a watchlist, we must never forget them. They can be considered residual risks and must be handled as and when required.

Secondary Risks

• Those risks that emerge as a direct result of implementing a planned risk response
• It is not the same as a new risk that may be uncovered during the project’s life 

Fallback Plan

• Is planned in advance 
• Is used/implemented when the original planned risk response proves ineffective
• Is typically the “Plan B” in common lingo
• Is created typically for very high priority/impact risks to minimize impact in case the original plan fails
• Is created also for cases where we are not too confident about the response that has been formulated or about the impact of a risk 

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Next: Introduction - Outputs of the Plan Risk Responses Process