Overview:

This checklist provides guidance on assessing that all possible risks in a project have been considered.

Check Items:

• Have all potential risks to the project been identified?
  • Have you identified anything that could deter you on the path to the project success? 
  • Have you involved the team and stakeholders in risk identification?
  • Have you made sure that several categories were considered (technical, project management, organizational, and external)? 
  • List all potential risks, giving a description and type (direct or indirect). See Concept: Risk for more information.
• Have all risks been described without ambiguity?  
  • Are risks captured and described in a clear, concise, and unambiguous way?
  • Also follow these rules when describing response strategies for risks. This will help you avoid unnecessary work and --more importantly -- increase the probability that risks are effectively identified and managed.
• Have all major risks been evaluated?
  • Has the team assessed the order of magnitude of each risk (probability x impact)?
  • Have the risks been sorted according to their magnitude? This allows you to address the higher-magnitude risks early in the project.
  • Has a response strategy been chosen for higher-magnitude risks? 
• Are there interdependencies between risks? 
  • Make sure that you establish interdependencies between risks as appropriate. For example, the consequence of a risk happening may raise the probability of another risk happening or raise the impact that another risk could have on the project. If risks depend on each other, you may need a response strategy to mitigate all interdependent risks at the same time, or you may need revisit the risk list to update the magnitude of dependent risks.