
Selling an idea
To execute their projects, project champions must secure resources from their organizations. Whether proposing new ideas, or seeking additional resources to continue work on existing efforts, they're in the role of "sellers." They must seek approval for resources from decision makers — "buyers" in this situation. Risk creep happens when the decisions of buyers and sellers introduce unrecognized risk into the projects they pursue together. Here are three sources of risk creep. For more examples, see Part I.
- Organizational blind spots
- By applying to new efforts the patterns we used for past efforts, we often leave unaddressed whatever risks the past efforts didn't encounter. Most organizations have risk blind spots. The risks that are overlooked or underestimated tend to be correlated across similar efforts, because of knowledge and experience sharing, and because management tends to hire and promote people of similar strengths and abilities. In some cases, people with unique experiences or unusual knowledge might encounter resistance upon offering those experiences or knowledge, or upon incorporating their insights into plans and proposals. Thus, organizations not only have blind spots, but also harbor mechanisms that tend to maintain those blind spots.
- Sellers exploit the biases of buyers
- Intentionally By applying to new efforts the
patterns we used for past efforts,
we often leave unaddressed whatever
risks the past efforts didn't encounteror inadvertently, buyers disclose their personal preferences to sellers, who then use that information in the selling process, to make their proposals more appealing to buyers. In some cases, this tailoring requires biased assessments of risks of the proposed project. Risk then creeps into the project, even when neither buyer nor seller is aware of the bias. These biases affect sellers not only in how they position their proposals, but also in their choices of what to propose. Some perfectly sound ideas are never even proposed, because the sellers mistakenly believe the buyers wouldn't be interested. - Both buyers and sellers exploit urgency
- When we regard pursuing an idea as urgent, we're more likely to accept risks, more likely to underestimate risks, and more likely to overlook risks. Both buyers and sellers contribute. Some buyers have preconceived ideas about what's important. Whether or not they're correct, they communicate their preconceptions to sellers to encourage them to propose the kinds of ideas they favor. At times buyers add a dash of urgency to these communications to attract the most capable sellers. This biases the portfolio of proposals they receive by replacing importance with urgency. As an element of their "sales pitch," some sellers assert, "…we must do this now or miss the opportunity." This replaces the question of the importance of the proposed objective, with a question of timing. When this happens, both buyer and seller may be mistaking urgency for importance. Whether buyers or sellers exploit urgency, risk creeps in.
Risk is a fact of life. Risk creep need not be. Use open conversations to mitigate risk creep risk. First issue in this series
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Related articles
More articles on Project Management:
Restarting Projects
- When a project gets off track, we sometimes cancel it. But since canceling projects takes a lot of courage,
we look for ways to save them if we can. Often, things do turn out OK, and at other times they don't.
There's a third choice, between pressing on with a project and canceling it. We can restart.
Nine Project Management Fallacies: III
- Some of what we "know" about managing projects just isn't so. Identifying the fallacies of
project management reduces risk and enhances your ability to complete projects successfully.
Long-Loop Conversations: Asking Questions
- In virtual or global teams, where remote collaboration is the rule, waiting for the answer to a simple
question can take a day or more. And when the response finally arrives, it's often just another question.
Here are some suggestions for framing questions that are clear enough to get answers quickly.
Guidelines for Sharing "Resources"
- Often, team members belong to several different teams. The leaders of teams whose members have divided
responsibilities must sometimes contend with each other for the efforts and energies of the people they
share. Here are some suggestions for sharing people effectively.
Risk Creep: I
- Risk creep is a term that describes the insidious and unrecognized increase in risk that occurs despite
our every effort to mitigate risk or avoid it altogether. What are the dominant sources of risk creep?
See also Project Management for more related articles.
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