Project risk management

In order to exist and ensure its long-term survival, if not its very survival, every company needs to maintain recurring activities and new activities in the form of research and development projects leading to the production and/or exploitation of products.

Business management, project management, facility management and product use all generate risks, due to the hazards inherent in the management process. Whether these risks are positive (also known as speculative), i.e. voluntarily taken as a result of hoped-for gains, or negative as a result of harm caused or suffered, depends essentially on the nature of the activity concerned and the maturity of management. We can consider that they are likely to influence all or part of the process, and ultimately its objectives.

Thus :

• For a company, the positive risks induced by its management "s decisions for its development, or the negative risks it suffers due to poor organization, competition, etc., can improve or hinder its results and, more generally, its long-term viability;

• for a project, the structural risks induced by inadequate consideration of requirements, poor organization or insufficient technology, and the cyclical risks linked to the hazards of the project's progress and management, can thwart the achievement of its objectives in terms of performance, costs and deadlines;

• for a product, the risks induced by its nature, use or operation (installation) can thwart its sales or productivity targets, whether or not they are combined with safety targets that are not met.

Within the framework of an existing industrial policy, project management is the activity associated with the iterative process bringing together technical, financial and human resources to achieve customer-specified objectives in terms of technical and operational performance and product safety, combined with project cost and time.

The strategy put in place by the project manager to achieve this must take account of risk factors, i.e. uncertainties, sources of danger or disturbances which exist structurally before and at the start of the project and/or which may...