On September 5^th, the monthly TRG talk about Risk management took place upstairs in one of the TRG meeting rooms. The topic for this month was: “Project Management: How to Keep Risks Away?”

This month’s seminar was led by Nguyen Si Trieu Chau, Founder and CEO of Atoha.

Mr Chau introduced this month’s TRG Talk with a very simple question ‘What is a Risk?’.

A risk is an uncertainty, something that has not happened yet but has the possibility to impact the goals you have set for your company or the project you are working on. Following up on this question, naturally, Mr Chau continued by explaining how it is possible to identify and analyse risks in the early stages to be as prepared as you can. Before identifying the risks, you must know the criteria for you project such as S.M.A.R.T. goals, time, and costs. When the criteria are set, Mr Chau listed four ways to identify risks:

Interviews: It is important to interview key stakeholder to establish transparency and make sure you have all information needed regarding your project.

Brainstorming: This is important to make sure you detect as many risks as possible BUT make sure to plan your questions in advance to keep your brainstorming session on topic such as ‘what are the most significant risks to your project?’ or ‘what are the most significant risks related to the task (insert task)?’.

Checklists: To make it easier to identify risks now or risks related to future project, it is important to keep checklists. See if there are any checklists of risks from previous projects that may relate to your current project. The checklists you have, and continue making, may benefit your future projects. REMEMBER, checklists are great, but no checklists contain all risks!

Cause and effect diagram: When you have detected all potential risks, it is important to categorise them into the level of damage they may be able to cause, how likely they are to happen and how this may affect the process of reaching your set goals. This can be done by creating a risk matrix. After this, you and your team will be able to create plan risks responses where you implement and control risks which can be set in place, so if something should interfere with your project, you will be prepared.

He then ended the talk by giving an example of a real life project using these criteria to identify risks and what impact risks can have on your project.

All in all, an insightful and motivating TRG talk, led by an incredible man with a lot of experience and knowledge in his field.

About TRG International 

TRG International is an IT, Talent and F&B company. We help people and businesses to shine. We help people be the best they can possibly be by selecting the right people for the right job and developing them to their full potential. We help companies by providing an IT solution that works quietly and brilliantly in the background, freeing them up to focus on their core and not having to worry about their IT systems. We do this for more than 1,000 clients in 80 countries.