flynn019

In business planning and all of project management , risk assessment, mitigation and containment tend to be haphazardly addressed, if addressed at all. These terms seem conceptually negative (not unlike a pre-nuptual agreement would seem to anticipate a marital failure or mistrust at the outset), so they are usually shunted aside in the interest of creating a positive managerial and team environment for the attainment of an objective. Yet risk is a part of what is required in order to generate a return or result. It must be addressed at the beginning of any incremental strategic or project plan at the very beginning, and it must be monitored and revised as necessary at regular intervals. Optimally, these reviews should be held at the same times as the variance measurement and monitoring meetings are planned. In the simplest terms, every course of action should be analyzed for risk at the beginning, so that the plan can incorporate certain anticipatory elements of flexi...

If there is a difference between the results which you projected (or budgeted), and your actual results, you have a variance . Calculating the amount and composition ( isolating each of its contributing components) of that variance is important -- but the key to using it as an analytic tool for course correction is to understand how and why the disparity occurred. The most unproductive use of this data is to use it like a light switch , i.e., "This thing didn't work, so let's scrap it and start over with a different approach." Used properly, you can use the "how" and the "why" to minimize trail and error, minimize time and resources lost, and not, in essence sell your car because it has run out of gasoline. Incidentally, by "variance" I absolutely refer to deviation from the expected result , and not deviation from a statistical mean . This is not a statistics exercise in standard deviation or sampling. This is a briefing on how to use ...

Apologies, dear readers and respected colleagues! We are currently in the process of re-constructing our blog templates in order to improve your reading, learning and interactive experience at each site. We should be able to resume a normalized, more frequent posting schedule by Wednesday evening, 5th October. Thank you in advance for reading me. And more than this, thank you for your encouragement, support, responsiveness, constructive feedback and loyalty. Your patience is deeply appreciated. Faithfully and with respect, Douglas E Castle p.s. If you would like something quite interesting to read in the meantime, I would be delighted if you would have a look at http://aboutdouglascastle.blogspot.com/2011/10/man-versus-machine.html , and let me know your thoughts. I would also appreciate your feedback on my most recent post (today) on a blog which has been too-long neglected and is now being reconstructed and re-activated. Visit http://BloggingTipsTricksAndTools.blogspot.com . The blog...