You can't accept responsibility for things you don't control. If you want them to accept responsibility, you need to give them control over it.
Risk management is not project management
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Re: Risk management is not project management
#72Wasn't familiar with RACI acronym: RACI is an acronym derived from the four key responsibilities most typically used: responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. It is used for clarifying and defining roles and responsibilities in cross-functional or departmental projects and processes. I wish more people briefly defined acronyms at first usage in a document.
Whilst I don't think RACI is that uncommon speak. I do think that there should be a glossary if people are using a lot of acronyms.
Like another poster said, in an engineering doc they might not spell out what REST or HTTP stands for or means and that makes sense.
Re: Risk management is not project management
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if managers asked people to set goals with the explicit expectation of failure? Not just “moonshot” but “set 5 goals and you will be judged to succeed if you hit 3/5” Or “set 5 goals and if you hit at least 80% of all 5, you get credit for making them all” The concept is already known to sales orgs with quotas and OTE.
If you have five different goals and only need to hit three of them, you're incentivized to focus all efforts on the three easiest ones, and ignore the other two entirely. Or if you only need to hit 80% of each, to go for all low-hanging fruit until hitting 80%, then shift focus. Non-cynical colleagues will act in as much good faith as they believe the manager is doing when setting the goals. But Goodhart's law lurks…
If you need to hit 3/5 you need to set the goals so that they are easy enough to surely succeed. Maybe you fail two to make them look hard, after you know you passed three.
Re: Risk management is not project management
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have five different goals and only need to hit three of them, you're incentivized to focus all efforts on the three easiest ones, and ignore the other two entirely. Or if you only need to hit 80% of each, to go for all low-hanging fruit until hitting 80%, then shift focus. Non-cynical colleagues will act in as much good faith as they believe the manager is doing when setting the goals. But Goodhart's law lurks…
>If you have five different goals and only need to hit three of them, you're incentivized to focus all efforts on the three easiest ones, and ignore the other two entirely. That assumes that the three "easiest" goals have known, straightforward, guaranteed ways of attaining them. Naturally there will be some uncertainty, some extrinsic factors, some good and bad luck that will get in that way of any of the goals, so…
> Does that sound so bad, if it's by design?
Not at all. Just important to keep in mind when setting those goals.
Re: Risk management is not project management
#75Re: Risk management is not project management
#76Re: Risk management is not project management
#77This is a terrible post. The author conflates responsibility with accountability in a few ways. Most importantly, the long-established wisdom in project management is that (from the project perspective) responsibility can be shared, but accountability can not. The author suggests sharing accountability a few times.
Also, good project management is 90% good project risk management.
I wouldn’t want this guy manage my projects or do RACI for my projects.
Re: Risk management is not project management
#78Odd side note. I asked chat gpt for feedback on the screenshot of a RACI and added some color on the parties involved and the scope of work. It provided some really good analysis and recommendations.
Mind share your prompt and the output, thanks.
It's long gone, nothing special, just uploaded a screenshot of the raci as it was being edited in a spreadsheet. Then just explained the context and the teams listed.
Re: Risk management is not project management
#79Hi! OP here. I didn't expect my first _real_ blog post to garner attention, so thank you! There's some great feedback here. I love the discussion around the topic, and I'll be sure to apply some of the community's feedback to my future posts.
Re: Risk management is not project management
#80I would argue that what the author describes is not risk management. It's a CYA game. Risk management is a part of project management. Real risk management identifies risk and defines mitigations to bring the risk down to an acceptable level. Passing the buck doesn't address the true risk; it only addresses the risk of who is accountable. Imagine a scenario where you need a new water heater in your home. One of the r…
Thanks for the feedback. I agree that risk management is a part of project management. What I, perhaps unclearly, was communicating is that people and organizations can often conflate the two. A project is not managed if all you've focused on are the risks. They are related, but distinct things.
Let's take your example and apply it to my post. Imagine I need a new water heater. I found a contractor/company to come and install it. Should I assume the installation company will bear all the risks associated with a potentially problematic installation? No, I will carry some risk. Ideally, I would argue homeowners should familiarize themselves with the basics of correct water heater products and installation because if it fails outside of the installer's (or manufacturer's) warranty period the homeowner is liable for repairs. It's a stretch of an example because homeowners often share risk with insurers, but I think my point is clear - one should not confuse project management _with_ risk management.