How do you identify risks and communicate to stakeholders?
Answers
Involve Your Team. Project managers are often held responsible for communicating with stakeholders, but they shouldn't be the only line of communication. ...
Consider Stakeholder Location. ...
Utilize technology. ...
Use Reporting and Alerts.
Answer:
Here are our four tips for communicating risks to stakeholders, and why they're important:
1. INVOLVE YOUR TEAM
Project managers are often held responsible for communicating with stakeholders, but they shouldn't be the only line of communication. Risk management requires the involvement of all of your project team members, especially if individuals hold expertise in certain risk areas, or are leaders of a specific aspect of the project.
These particular specialists will provide relevant and detailed information, and help build more realistic stakeholder expectations. By meeting expectations, it's easier to relate to project stakeholders and obtain their vital support for your project.
Studies conducted by The Project Management Institute found that by shaping realistic stakeholder expectations, projects were found to be more successful, as support was a distinguishing factor between successful and challenged projects. By allocating communication responsibilities to expert individuals, stakeholders can obtain more relevant information that provides them with these vital realistic expectations.
2. CONSIDER STAKEHOLDER LOCATION
If key stakeholders aren't located near you or your project, it can make it difficult to communicate effectively. Ideally, you should choose a project team member who is close to the location of your stakeholders, whether it's by region, country, or timezone, who can more easily respond to questions and concerns.
In our digital age, face-to-face communication can build stronger working relationships and encourage higher engagement, so consideration of stakeholder location should be a priority if you want to communicate effectively. If you're holding a weekly call at a time where a stakeholder in a different time zone may be asleep, or can't find a time or day when essential stakeholders are available, it's likely they'll become disengaged. Remote members of your team can use your risk assessment reporting system as the central hub of their information and communicate to stakeholders with greater foresight into potential risks.
3. UTILIZE TECHNOLOGY
Risk analysis technology can equip you and your team members with the ability to communicate quantitative risk analysis to your stakeholders. When risk assessment is purely speculative or includes an inaccurate assessment of resources, finances, or time, stakeholder expectations can become misguided towards unrealistic demands. This can leave them unhappy with your project's management, potentially damaging their support.
Cost risk tools can perform a cost-only risk analysis from the beginning of your project until closeout, ensuring that financial expectations are met. Additionally, risk analysis technology can perform a schedule risk analysis that identifies high-risk areas of your project, provides high value information such as a prioritized report of the top risks likely to delay your project, and allows you to accurately determine an end date (a crucial stakeholder expectation).
Moreover, risk assessment tools enable you to visualize alternative scenarios to your risks and enable you to calculate the impact of them. By using technology, you can communicate accurate information to your stakeholders that is more likely to ensure their support.
4. USE REPORTING AND ALERTS
If we recognise the importance of communicating with stakeholders, how do project managers ensure that communications are regular, stakeholders are engaged, and that stakeholders are fully aware of the risks of their project?
By regularly reporting on your project, you can check for common issues, report potential issues with interactive links, and submit them for analysis. You can then set up alerts for potential risks and retroactively react and inform key individuals or stakeholders who need to know.