Plant Services - May 2008 - (Page 27) ASSET MANAGER Avoid the rocks Steer your CMMS project carefully and you’ll be able to manage the risks umn 4. Use a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 represents catavery project has risks few project teams prepare for strophic consequences should the risk occur and 1 means the possibility that something might go wrong. A negligible impact. In the example of a project skills shortage, thorough risk-mitigation and contingency plan, the remaining impact might be 8 out of 10 because lacking complete with probability of occurrence, leaves little to senior leadership and change-management skills would alchance. The unexpected is expected, and you can deal with most certainly lead to lack of stakeholder buy-in and serious it effectively when it happens. barriers to a successful implementation. Unfortunately, IT and reengineering projects have risks Calculate the residual risk scores (column 5) by multiplying that become reality. IT projects get delayed, go over budcolumn 3 by column 4. Rank them and examine any greater get or fall short of the quality level expected. Even today, than 1.0 to determine if you can reduce the probability or CMMS projects have poor track records, with more than impact. The higher the residual risk score, the more critical 50% of them missing the mark. Project teams can achieve it is to develop a contingency plan. Preparing a much higher probability of success simply a contingency plan well in advance minimizes by planning for, and mitigating against, the Preparing a the downside impact. most likely risks. If, despite a good mitigation plan, there’s contingency still a shortage of skilled CMMS project reRisk-management matrix plan well sources, then the contingency plan will be Develop a framework for recording and disin advance executed. Planning a contingency well in adcussing project risks. One approach is a spreadminimizes vance – even incorporating it into the vendor sheet with one risk per row, and columns that contract – eliminates triggering more seridescribe each risk as follows: the downside ous contingencies and their consequences, The first column has a short risk descripimpact. such as shutting down the CMMS project tion, usually grouped as resource, projectat great expense to management’s credibility, management and implementation risks. An employee morale and, ultimately, the bottom line. example risk is that the CMMS project fails to attract the A small sampling of the many common risks associated right planning and implementation skills because too many with CMMS projects includes some category groupings. If projects are competing for resources. they’re relevant, add them to your risk matrix in the first Column 2 lists the actions that minimize the probability column, and fill in the remaining columns. Think of other of the risk occurring. For example, the plan to ensure the relevant risks under each of these categories. CMMS project secures the appropriate resources might include delaying other projects, using external resources and consultants to backfill for the right internal resources and CMMS vendor partnership training any available unskilled people. •Insufficientaccesstoresources:Isthevendorproviding Executing plans to mitigate still leaves a possibility the enough resources at the right times to ensure success? risk will occur. The “remaining probability” in column 3 • oor-qualityvendorassistance:Isthevendorproviding P quantifies the percent probability of occurrence. Perhaps resources with the right skills and experience necessary even after delaying other projects, the remaining probability to implement effectively? of a project skills shortage is still 20%. This is because there’s a chance that the other projects won’t be delayed sufficiently Internal project resources or that the CMMS project will also be delayed and the proj• odepthofexpertiseonprojectteam:KeystakeholdN ects will again be in competition for skilled resources. ers such as maintenance, engineering, IT, finance and Prioritizing project risk requires quantifying the outcome human resources, especially operations, should be repshould the risk occur despite mitigation. Show this in colresented by senior people. May 2008 www.PLANTSERVICES.com 27 E http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com
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