What is risk? Essentially, risk is against to the expectation, risk is a threat, risk is an impact which demands lose. How to identify them? How to mitigate them? Risk is specific to a project, product, business, governance, or a life so the mitigation is also specific to that specific. I would like to limit the risk identification and mitigation to a product in this article.

Well, there are numerus types of risks but the root causes for them are two types 1. Manual intervention 2. Process failure. The process could be manual or automation. If we observe, technically risk is only one type because the processes are also being set up by humans.

Human Risks

How to see this flow chart? All the right boxes are concluded with decisions but the left boxes continue until the end to find the conclusion. Any of your risks will certainly match to the root causes in the left side boxes. Let me explain how it works.

Lets us assume a risk which had been injected by human unintentionally. What could be the root cause. If it is lack of clarity the risk is concluded per flow chart, yet find the mitigation. Though the task/subject/topic is clear the risk is not clear, it could be lack of ability, the risk is concluded in this case. But let us assume the person has ability to perform, what could be the risk here? Perhaps, lack of resources. Let’s assume the resources are available, then the question of risk is ability of the resources.

The flow works both top to bottom approach and bottom to top approach. For instance, the resources have the ability to perform but no clarity about the task/project/product/topic, it is also a risk.

Process risks

Process or certification are not the invention of the god, they are also human inventions. A process do not need to match for every project/product. Often, the process is right fit, it needs to be modified, updated per latest trends and needs. Implementing old processes for all the products is the biggest risk.

So, map your existing risks to this flow to identify the the root causes or use the flow to identify the risks. Mitigation plan is specific to the risks. For instance, if the risk comes under “Lack of clarity”, it indicates that no clarity what to be developed, need to work on requirements or the features to be developed.

Risk and mitigation plan is one of the major plans which can not be skipped in the product plan.

Another good read

How to deal growth and maturity stages of a product