Practical Project Risk Management, Third Edition, 3rd Edition

5

Exposing the Challenge (Identification)

Once the Initiation step is complete and the project’s Risk Management Plan has been produced and distributed, the First Risk Assessment in the ATOM process can commence. This is the first opportunity for the project team to explore the risk exposure of the project in a structured manner, and therefore requires a high level of attention and effort. The First Risk Assessment has a number of subsidiary steps, including Identification, Assessment, and Response Planning. Identification is described in this chapter; the subsequent steps are described in Chapters 6 and 7.

The initial element of the First Risk Assessment is Identification; some think that this is the most important step in the process, because ...