Risks Associated with Project Plans¶

After creating a project plan, study the following common problem areas (project risks) and revise your plan as needed.

1. Technology Risks - Lack of Project Specific Knowledge and Skills¶

Identify the knowledge and skills needed to complete the project based on your technical approach. Study if the team has the necessary knowledge and skills or not. As required, define appropriate tasks, such as conducting technology feasibility experiments and learning to use a new tool.

2. Resource Risks¶

If you need to use a shared resource available in the Design Lab or on campus, you need to check its availability and adjust your project plan as needs. Examples are as follows.

• Many teams ask the Design Lab technician to fabricate their parts near the end of the semester. Hence, you may have to wait for a long time to receive your parts. Your design must be completed, reviewed, and approved by your PE by the end of the 9th week.
• If you need to borrow a particular apparatus or access a laboratory to perform a task, check its availability and schedule the corresponding tasks.

3. Procurement Risks - Lead Time and Resource Availability¶

Things do not happen instantaneously. Therefore, you must anticipate delays when scheduling tasks. Examples are as follows.

• Your design must be reviewed and approved by your Project Engineer before you can order parts and/or start fabricating it. It typically takes two more reviews before a design is approved. Therefore, you should plan at least two design reviews.
• The Design Lab uses RPI’s purchasing system. It takes a minimum of two to five days for your parts to arrive after submitting a purchase request to Valerie. Due to supply chain issues, some items may take significantly longer. When you plan to acquire parts, include a delay.

4. Missing (Unplanned) Tasks¶

You must review your project plan critically and make sure that all tasks were identified and planned. Examples of tasks that were often missed are as follows.

• Your design must be reviewed and approved by your Project Engineer before you can order parts and/or start fabricating it. It typically takes two more reviews before a design is approved. Therefore, you should plan at least two design reviews.
• You must integrate subsystems to produce a complete system. Therefore, it is essential to define integration-related tasks and allocate time to integrate subsystems.
• You must objectively demonstrate how well your system (solution) met the customer’s needs and requirements. List everything, such as hardware, circuitry, sensors, software, and so on, that you need to test. You may have to plan and create a test fixture, test software, test data, and/or sample materials.

5. Miscellaneous Risks - Unexpected Problems¶

Things could go wrong. How did you plan for delays and unexpected problems?

To Do¶

Explain how you modified the project plan based on your risk analysis.

Table 1 Project Risks and Risk Management Plans

	Problem (Risk)	Risk Management Plan
1.
2.
3.
4.