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ProjectBalm blog

Practical perspectives on managing risk.

Insights, trends, and expert perspectives to help teams make risk information clearer, more consistent, and more useful.

Latest articles

From the ProjectBalm team

36 practical guides and perspectives.

Article

Risk Management in IT Projects?

If you’ve spent time in IT delivery—whether implementing enterprise systems, integrating platforms, deploying cloud infrastructure, migrating data, or buildi…

4 minute read

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Article

Using Risk Metalanguage

Managing risks effectively is essential for successful project outcomes. However, the terminology used when discussing risks can often be misleading. Project…

2 minute read

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Article

Risk Response Strategies: A Practical Guide

Identifying and assessing a risk is not enough. Once a risk has been understood and prioritised, the organisation must decide what it will do about it. A ris…

12 minute read

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Article

Upside Risk: How to Identify and Manage Positive Risks

Risk management is often treated as a defensive discipline: identify what might go wrong, assess the consequences, and take action to prevent or reduce harm.…

12 minute read

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Article

Forty Common Project Risks

Common project risks become easier to identify and manage when teams start with practical examples. This guide groups 40 project risk examples by category, t…

8 minute read

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Article

Implementing ISO 31000 with Risk Register

ISO 31000:2018 is a globally-recognized standard that provides guidelines for effective risk management. Developed by the International Organization for Stan…

19 minute read

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Article

Risk Analysis: A Practical Guide

Risk identification tells you what might affect your objectives. Risk analysis helps you understand how much each identified risk matters. A practical analys…

19 minute read

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Article

How to Monitor Risks

There are four key steps in the standard risk management process: identification, assessment, treatment, and monitoring. This article explains risk monitorin…

4 minute read

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Article

Risk Identification: A Practical Guide

Risk identification is the process of recognising and describing uncertainties that could affect objectives. It is the first practical step in risk managemen…

16 minute read

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Article

Understanding Resource Risks

Research shows that a substantial portion of project problems stem from resource risks, so understanding this area is pivotal for success. These risks can be…

3 minute read

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Article

Understanding Schedule Risks

For many organizations, hitting a deadline is the critical metric for project success. Delivering new capability according to schedule builds trust with clie…

2 minute read

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Article

Understanding Scope Risks

In project management, "scope" is a critical yet often misconstrued concept, with some practitioners preferring a broad definition and others a narrow one. T…

3 minute read

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Article

The Crucial Role of Legal Counsel

Organizations worldwide have encountered various emerging challenges in recent years, fundamentally altering the traditional approach to business operations.…

2 minute read

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Article

Risk Management and Business Instinct

Risk management professionals continually seek new methods and processes to improve their outcomes. They typically have a preference for empirical tools, whi…

2 minute read

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Article

Four Strategies to Secure Buy-In

In the world of project management, structured risk management is no longer an optional extra; it's a must-have. But project managers can't do it all alone.…

2 minute read

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Article

What Does Risk Management Cost?

Managing Most modern businesses recognise that risk management is essential, but fewer are willing to acknowledge it is inherently costly. There is a common…

8 minute read

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Article

Conducting a Risk Retrospective

Reviewing past events, or performing risk retrospectives, is a critical element of effective risk management, generating valuable lessons and guiding organiz…

5 minute read

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Article

Understanding Risk Tolerance

Psychology plays a critical role when it comes to managing project or organizational risk. One key concept is risk tolerance, which is an individual's or org…

2 minute read

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Article

The Hidden Role of Risk Perception

Effective risk management is the heartbeat of every thriving business, steering it toward stability and success. Central to this process is risk assessment,…

2 minute read

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Article

Why All Projects Carry Risk

Risk is everywhere - in our domestic lives, our social situations, and particularly in our business activities. Some vendors guarantee "risk-free" projects,…

2 minute read

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Article

Decluttering your Risk Register

It's common to hear grumbles about overly detailed Risk Registers. These documents, designed to log potential project threats, often become cluttered with ev…

2 minute read

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Article

The Power of Futures Thinking

Organizational risk management has often focused on identifying and mitigating immediate threats. This is hardly surprising! However, as the business environ…

4 minute read

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Article

Breaking Barriers in Risk Communication

Risk management is all about staying ahead of the game, and effective communication is the secret sauce enabling this. To build a thriving risk culture and a…

2 minute read

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Article

Risk Categorization is Crucial

Risk management is a cornerstone of effective business operations, particularly within the context of project execution and enterprise-level decision-making.…

3 minute read

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Article

Is it Really a Risk?

Risk identification is the first step in the risk management process, and it is here that organizations often run into trouble. It is vital that you learn to…

2 minute read

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Article

What is your Risk Maturity Level?

In the 1980s, a new type of framework called a "maturity model" emerged in industry. The proponents of these models intended to help organizations assess the…

2 minute read

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Article

Risk Descriptions that Work

The number of risks in a project or organization can range from a mere handful to a staggering multitude, each with its own unique level of detail. While a h…

2 minute read

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Article

What does a Risk Manager do?

A growing number of organisations are hiring risk managers to oversee the corporate response to risk. A risk manager is ultimately responsible for controllin…

1 minute read

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Article

Three Reasons to Dump your Risk Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets have been an integral part of the computing landscape for over forty years. Although first devised to replace paper-based accounting worksheets,…

2 minute read

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Article

Five Signs your Project is at Risk

For nearly thirty years, a research company called The Standish Group has been preparing an annual paper called The Chaos Report, which surveys thousands of…

3 minute read

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Article

Five Tips to Improve your Risk Management

Risk management is more important than ever, but many project managers struggle to implement it effectively. Here are five simple tips to help you get better…

3 minute read

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Article

Understanding ISO 31000

ISO 31000 is an international standard that provides guidelines and principles for creating a risk management framework and process. It offers a systematic a…

4 minute read

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Article

What is Risk Management?

Risk management is now considered a staple process in many organizations and has become an increasingly important component of regulatory compliance (referen…

4 minute read

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Article

Four Steps of the Risk Management Process

Dealing with project risk requires you to adopt a risk management process. There are various formal processes defined these days, for example in the Project…

2 minute read

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Article

How to Implement Risk Management Software

Risk management software can help your company enhance its project delivery. With many companies still using Excel spreadsheets to monitor projects, deployin…

3 minute read

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Article

Elements of a Risk Management Plan

Risk management is generally accepted as a fundamental part of project management. Most project governance standards require you to define a risk management…

4 minute read

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