Risk, Issue & Opportunity Management

What is the difference between Risk & Assumption "in a sentence".
A Risk is a definable, but unknowable event that we presume WILL occur where as an Assumption is a definable, unknowable event that we presume will NOT occur.

The distinction between "WILL" and "will NOT occur" is the extent that we need to increase our project activities and budget to put in place the monitoring & mitigating resources & responsibilities associated with the risks (WILL occur). A comprehensive Risk management approach - linking risks to opportunity, activity, resource & responsibility is to use a RAID log.

The RAID log is a key programme & project management tool that allows the organisation (& if appropriate it’s external stakeholders) to see the progress of the project and issues impacting on the successful implementation from a practical “action and resolution” perspective. It is a structured, consistent tool that facilitates daily programme & project management decisions and sets the agenda for the management/stakeholder meetings that will provide oversight for the programme/project



Risks: Any external element that may influence the success or failure of the programme or project and element within it. Each risk must have mitigating action(s) set against it – that action that will reduce or pre-empt the risk should it materialise

Assumptions: Understandings of aspects of the programme, organisation or situation at a point in time that are understood to be fact or finite at that point in time. As with risks, assumptions must have mitigating action(s) set against it should the assumption prove to be incorrect.

Issues: Changes in the day-to-day activities of the programme/project that must be tracked and addressed to ensure the continued progress of the programme. Every issue should be assigned an action, owner and completion date to ensure that it is addressed so that it does not escalate to being a risk to the success of the overall programme

Dependencies: These must be identified and tracked as they impact on people’s ability to undertake tasks and address issues. Dependencies form a key part of workload prioritisation during the programme and are a basic agenda item for any meetings and decision-points and as such must be consistent with all other aspects of the plans, projects and programmes.

Strategy Road Map

Vision & Mission: It is vital for any organisation to be able to demonstrate the strategic opportunities available over a three to five year cycle. A projection of the future state of the organisation with supporting rationale should be prepared, validated and quantified as accurately as possible so that the various stakeholders can see how the organisation will meet its statutory objectives

Strategy & Objectives: Once the Vision and Mission are documented and agreed the next step is to explicitly identify the strategy that would be pursued. Supporting this strategy must be specific objectives that support the ongoing decision-making process (prioritisation of actions, allocation of resources, delegation of responsibility, monitoring of performance, etc.).

There must be a direct alignment between the Vision and Mission and the strategic objectives as it will be through achieving these objectives that the vision will be realised.

Organisation: The areas of strategic importance that are identified in step two and the associated objectives for these areas must be aligned to the recommended staff (roles and responsibilities) to help make the case for approving the budget for each recommendation.

Supporting these resources will be reporting and process requirements which in turn will be determined by the extent to which tasks are retained internally (service delivery) or managed via third party suppliers (contract management).

Operations: Operations focus primarily on the business, financial and governance model that would be adopted. The Operations structure answers the questions of “What is required to achieve performance targets, manage working capital and revenue streams, ensure seamless service delivery, invest in market access and retention, etc?”

Accurate recording of financial performance and monitoring of this performance against the business plan is vital to prevent, pre-empt or mitigate challenges in a manner that minimises any negative impact on the achievement of the mission and objectives (steps one and two above)

Business Plan: The business plan (or Business Case) is the key strategic management tool that incorporates the key performance indicators for the year-on-year progress against the strategic objectives.

The Dynamic Planning Circle (DPC)

The Dynamic Planning Circle (DPC) has four axes, or the 4 “M’s”;
- Mapping and Markets – the external influences and
- Mechanism and Motivations – the internal factors.

Around these four axes the Basic Business Elements – specific to an organisation, are identified. These basic elements are what make the planning circle dynamic. Each element is interrelated with the others, allowing the small enterprise-person to quantify specific goals and ensure that all elements of the business plan (goals and objectives) are appropriate and achievable.


The DPC has been used as a planning and a facilitation tool to allow SMEs; NGOs and other organisations affected by both internal and external stakeholders, to identify the particular sources of influence on their enterprises/organisations and how these influences have, or could, manifest themselves. The DPC can then be used as an operational tool to aid project definition; partner (donor) selection; proposal preparation and project management & delivery

What is Project Management

Project: A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service.
- Temporary means that the project has an end date.
- Unique means that the project's end result is different than the results of other (business-as-usual) functions of the organisation

Management: "Management" (from Old French ménagement "the art of conducting, directing", from Latin manu agere "to lead by the hand")
- characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organisation through
- the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible).



Project + Management
Both a process and set of tools and techniques concerned with defining the project's goal, planning all the work to reach the goal, leading the project and support teams, monitoring progress, and seeing to it that the project is completed in a satisfactory way.

The application of modern management techniques and systems to the execution of a project from start to finish, to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, quality, time and cost, to the equal satisfaction of those involved.