As a project unfolds, the project management team and or the project management team leader will find themselves in positions in which they realize that a particular component as to the project and or a particular facet of that project does in fact come with a set or series of inherent risk. When attempting to organize any and all risks for the purposes of attempting to determine what the best strategy in dealing with them may be, it is often helpful to utilize this tool that is known as the risk breakdown structure. The risk breakdown structure is specifically a tool that represents an organized description of any known project risks that are arranged by a number of categories and characteristics. This risk breakdown structure will display all of the risks as well as some of their possible causes. This tool, when utilized by the project management team and or the project management team leader, is often broken down and tailored by project type.
This term is defined in the 3rd and the 4th edition of the PMBOK.