130 Project Risks (List)

Project risk is one of those exciting topics that everyone has an opinion about. Ask executives, functional managers, project managers or engineers about project risk - you'll get a laundry list of complaints. Lack of executive and stakeholder commitment usually tops the list. This is often followed by bad requirements, constant change, bad project managers and bad resources. In other words, risk identification tends to bring out plenty of negative emotions and finger pointing. All this misses the true value of project risk management. Any good project has plenty of risk. After all, the nature of business is taking risks. The risk free project achieves exactly nothing. You don't build businesses and great public institutions by hiding under a rock. Risk management is about maximizing your chances of project success by identifying risks early on and planning how to manage them. The following examples of risks will get you started down the path of risk identification.