It’s the start of a new quarter, and thus it’s time to make plans, share them, and decide how to best execute them. One of my favorite activities during this time is a reflection on plan risks with the development team, for a couple reasons. First, it serves as a venue to share the upcoming plan if it hasn’t already been shared. Second, it lets team members get pessimistic and vent their fears about the future in a safe space. Third, if the reflection is focused on actionable risk mitigations, it leads to a plan that is much more likely to succeed.
Talking about risks and risk mitigation can be tricky for a new product manager as the topic can appear much more complex than it needs to be. Often someone new to risk management will jump to having to calculate revenue exposure, probability of risk materialization, and other numbers that can feel like wild guesses. However, if tbey focus on the goal of risk discovery as identifying actionable mitigation strategies to make a plan successful, rather than calculating the financial impact of risks, these numbers are not important. What the risk management needs to do is identify the top risks and focus on what the Team can do to mitigate the risk materialization.
To identify the top risks, I have Teams first think widely about everything that could go wrong. To then prioritize the top risks, I have the Team rate each risk on two metrics: probability of materilization and impact if it does materialize. Rather than getting numeric values, I have them rate the risks relative to each other via a low/medium/high rating for each. Typically one or two risks will get a high/high rating for probability and impact of materialization, and these are the risks we discuss. Not only can this simplified framework help a new product manager discuss risks with a Team, it can help them think about risks and experiments for their products. By keeping risk management simple, they’ll be much more likely to incorporate it into planning and critical thinking about products and plans.
If you’d like to read more about risk mitigation, I suggest DeMarco’s Waltzing with Bears as an enjoyable and accessible way to understand risk management and be successful talking about risks in product development.