All types of projects come with risks. If risks are not identified early on during project management, it creates a lot of risk to your project life cycle as a lot of things are affected such as your resources, schedule and even the quality of the product. This is the reason why risk management is very important as it allows project managers to identify, analyze, respond and control the risks of the project. This process also improves the negative impacts of risk to the entire project life cycle.
Project risk management is a broad topic in project management. In order to produce outputs such as the risk register, it is necessary to use the right tools. There are many tools used in risk management and aside from assumption analysis, SWOT analysis, expert judgment and documentation review, diagramming techniques is also used.
Diagramming techniques, also called risk diagram techniques, is a method to present different information with logical linkages. This allows stakeholders to understand the information easily. Risk diagramming techniques involve different methods which include the following:
- Process flow charts: This technique shows how different elements of a particular system relate with one another. It also deals with the causal mechanisms of the risk.
- Cause and effect diagrams: This type of diagram is also called the fishbone or Ishikawa diagram and it is used to identify the different causes of risks. This is called fishbone diagram because the project activity is written on top and possible risks are written at the bottom which creates the fishbone appearance.
- Influence diagram: Influence diagrams are graphical presentations of different situations that show causal influence in time ordering events. It also presents the relationship of situations with other variables.
With this technique, it is easier to identify risks that may be present in a particular project activity. This term is defined in the 5th edition of the PMBOK.