RUSH TO RISK

Confidence wins business.  Customers are not naïve.  They know their projects involve risks, sometimes serious risks.  They will give their business to those in whom they have confidence to manage those risks effectively, knowing that threats do not disappear just because a contract has been signed.  Many companies have built huge competitive advantage by eagerly taking on the most dangerous projects, recognizing the hazards, and successfully controlling the perils.  Once their reputation for effective project risk management is recognized, they are able to win new business and earn premium fees.  A low price is less important to clients than knowing they will, indeed, get what they pay for.

This seminar will, through a series of real-world examples, illustrate how to build competitive advantage by Active Risk Management (ARM).  It will explore the techniques of identifying risks before they happen, developing cost-effective contingency plans that minimize the impact of those risks, and developing plans to mitigate the likelihood and the impact of adverse events even before they happen.

As an ARM company, yours will be well positioned to accept challenges your competitors will be afraid of.  You will be considered when others are dismissed as not fully competent.  For safer projects, you will do business with clients who value confidence that they will not be disappointed.

Course Agenda

Day One:

• The costs of failure to ARM projects

  • How one construction project failure to practice ARM cost over $500 million.

  • How failure to practice ARM cost the lives of seven courageous people.

  • How failure to practice ARM nearly killed Western Digital

• The costs of failure to take risks

  • Merrill-Lynch vs. E-Trade

  • General Motors vs. Toyota

• ARM successes

  • How ARM earned a $ 14.8 million bonus

  • How ARM built a $ 40 Billion company

• ARM definition.

Day Two:

• Terminology

• The ARM process

  • Risk Discovery – before it is too late!

  • Exposure Analysis – which risks should be managed?

  • Contingency Planning – what will we do?

  • Mitigation – What must we do now so that our contingency plans will work?

  • Transition Monitoring – See it coming!

Day Three:

Selling ARM by handling objections

• Selling ARM to yourself

  • I dare not be the only one acknowledging risk

• Selling ARM to your people

  • Acknowledging risk excuses poor performance

• Selling ARM to clients

  • Our clients are not mature enough to face risk

  • The extent of uncertainty is too much

  • Managing for success is better

  • There isn’t enough data to manage risk

How much risk to take

• Precision of estimates for costs and benefits

  • Five elements of estimating

• The biggest risk

Conclusions