My understanding is that unlike physical risks, like fire or electric shock, project execution risks are things that pass the test 

'could this cause a project to be cancelled or to run at a loss?',

(examples overspend, late delivery) and / or 'could this cause reputational damage that loses future business?' (scandals due to improper accounting or unacceptable behaviour / treatment of workers or fiddling of results).

Some may have obvious causes - bad initial estimation dur to poor research, 'wishful thinking' timelines,  our old friend 'mission (specification) creep', or key specialist staff not being available when they were expected.

Others are a bit more nebulous and very specific to certain types of business.

Once listed the treatment is similar. - 'do we have a plan to avoid this, or nip this in the bud if it starts ?'

Other opinions may vary.

Mike.

Totally agree, the challenge I've always found is overcoming the human desire to believe in the projects success - and to assume that the risks will be sorted out further down the line. One thing I've learned is that as soon as someone says one of the dreaded phrases "this project is too big to fail" or "this project is too important to the business / industry / company to fail" then run away, run away fast, and make sure your name is not attached to the project in any way...because it will fail. (At the very least will be way over budget and several years late, and probably massively de-scoped.) 

But exactly, it's as with all risk assessment: people just need to be willing to accept that there are risks, and to identify and address them early enough. I'd suggest the way top jump start this is to ensure that the project leadership is committed to open and honest risk assessment, including awareness that they need to avoid being blinded by the glittering prizes of the potential project's success. Easy to write, much harder to achieve, as many many failed projects demonstrate!

Totally agree, the challenge I've always found is overcoming the human desire to believe in the projects success - and to assume that the risks will be sorted out further down the line. One thing I've learned is that as soon as someone says one of the dreaded phrases "this project is too big to fail" or "this project is too important to the business / industry / company to fail" then run away, run away fast, and make sure your name is not attached to the project in any way...because it will fail. (At the very least will be way over budget and several years late, and probably massively de-scoped.) 

But exactly, it's as with all risk assessment: people just need to be willing to accept that there are risks, and to identify and address them early enough. I'd suggest the way top jump start this is to ensure that the project leadership is committed to open and honest risk assessment, including awareness that they need to avoid being blinded by the glittering prizes of the potential project's success. Easy to write, much harder to achieve, as many many failed projects demonstrate!

Hello Andy, 

Interesting thoughts about risk identification and risk assessment which, as you mentioned, all good project engineers try to do.

Do you think that in project execution there is a common definition of how risk is defined? After all, one needs to have a description of risk to recognise it, and possibly a unique description that can be used in several disciplines, both engineering and not engineering ones. 

Any though about it?

Thank you very much 

Gianni