Personnel-Sensitive Risks: I

Personnel-sensitive risks are those that can be understood only after acquiring personnel-sensitive information — information that, if disclosed improperly, could compromise the privacy of an employee, and thus the enterprise or its security, or place the enterprise in legal jeopardy. Most enterprises are reasonably careful about these disclosures, but protecting employees' privacy can become problematic for risk management planning.

Risk management plans for typical projects are usually enterprise-public. That is, anyone with a reasonable business-related need to examine them can do so — sponsors, project managers, auditors, functional managers and many others. Even when the author's permission is required, the security protecting risk management plans is rarely any more robust than the security protecting their projects.

That creates problems. Suppose that Dan's elderly mother has been gravely ill. Because he's been shuttling back and forth to his hometown for six months, his availability has been unpredictable, and certainly less than 75%, but her death is expected mercifully soon.

Dan's project manager wants to revise the risk plan to take this into account, justifying a reduction in reserves previously allocated to covering for Dan. In many organizations, there is no way to do this transparently without compromising Dan's privacy.

This example probably lies at the innocuous end of the spectrum of personnel-sensitive risks. There are others far more sensitive — divorce, illness or injury physical or mental, disciplinary issues, substance abuse problems, office love affairs gone wrong, and toxic conflicts, to list just a few.

The inability to plan discretely for managing personnel-sensitive risks has important consequences.

The risks aren't mitigated formally

You can't document mitigation plans for risks you can't discuss.

Risk mitigation is more likely to be incomplete or excessive

Since risk managers can't safely discuss certain risks, they either fail to mitigate them adequately, or they conceal the mitigation elsewhere in the mitigations of risks they can discuss.

Reflection is inhibited

Learning Learning from past experience
is difficult when the risk plans
as documented differ from
what the risk managers
were actually doingfrom past experience is difficult when the risk plans as documented differ from what the risk managers were actually doing.

Personal information is more likely to be disclosed inappropriately

Risk managers who do try to plan transparently are at risk of disclosing personal information that should not be disclosed. Such action could potentially create legal liability for the enterprise or for the discloser.

Employees are less likely to be forthcoming about personal matters

Knowing that personal information is at risk of disclosure, some employees keep personal information private, even when they know that doing so might harm the task for which they are responsible.

The risks that enterprise-public risk management plans cannot address are therefore rarely subjected to the best available risk management practices. These risks persist unmitigated, or at best, they're mitigated by informal, off-the-books decisions and allocations. Enterprise-public risk management plans are simply inadequate to the task.

What can we do about this? A modest proposal is our Part II, coming soon.  Next in this series  Top    Next Issue

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Ethics at Work:

Workplace Politics vs. Integrity

A reader wrote recently of wanting to learn "to effectively participate in office politics without compromising my integrity." It sometimes seems that those who succeed in workplace politics must know how to descend to the blackest depths, and still sleep at night. Must we abandon our integrity to participate in workplace politics?

Virtual Termination with Real Respect

When we have to terminate someone who works at a remote site, sometimes there's a temptation to avoid travel — to use email, phone, fax, or something else. They're all bad ideas. Terminating people in person is not only a gesture of respect. It's good business.

Extrasensory Deception: I

Negotiation skills are increasingly essential in problem-solving workplaces. When incentives are strong, or pressure is high, deception is tempting. Here are some of the deceptions popular among negotiators.

On the Appearance of Impropriety

Avoiding the appearance of impropriety is a frequent basis of business decisions. What does this mean, what are the consequences of such avoiding, and when is it an appropriate choice?

Influence and Belief Perseverance

Belief perseverance is the pattern that causes us to cling more tightly to our beliefs when contradictory information arrives. Those who understand belief perseverance can use it to manipulate others.

See also Ethics at Work and Project Management for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming December 18: The Trap of Beautiful Language

As we assess the validity of others' statements, we risk making a characteristically human error — we confuse the beauty of their language with the reliability of its meaning. We're easily thrown off by alliteration, anaphora, epistrophe, and chiasmus. Available here and by RSS on December 18.

And on December 25: Disjoint Awareness

In collaborations, awareness of how our own work might interfere with the work of others is essential. Unless our awareness of others' work — and their awareness of ours — matches reality, the collaboration's objective is at risk. Available here and by RSS on December 25.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenmhXARWRMUvVyOdHlner@ChacxgDmtwOKrxnripPCoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.