Risk Management to Problem-Impact Planning
Rebecca explores a tool to reframe risk and positively reshape the narrative for clients and stakeholders.
As a Project Manager it is inevitable that you’ll be the bearer of bad news, either to clients, teams or management at some point in the agile delivery cycle. Whenever it happens it can be a thankless task.
However, as an Agile Project Manager or Scrum Master, it’s likely that you love problem solving!
It’s at the core of what we do as the unblocker of issues, the facilitator of efficient delivery and the servant-teacher to our development squads. It’s at the heart of what gets us out of bed in the morning, facing a challenge and oiling the gears to keep the train moving forward with velocity.
Whilst striving for an ‘agile-as-possible’ approach, in the Middle East our clients often struggle, as they battle against the waterfall organisational structure which their business operates in. They may not have the bandwidth to be as involved in all the touch-points of the agile lifecycle, as you and they would like to be.
I’ve had client’s want to avoid saying the word ‘risk’ altogether, as it can unduly cause panic, when all that’s really needed is a good planning session to gain some clear solutions and resolutions.
So, rather than presenting a client with Risk Mitigation plans, we should perhaps talk about Problem-Impact Planning.
A piece by Ani Møller - Head of Delivery at Isobar Australia, provides a super straight-forward approach to dealing with those ‘bad news’ moments, with some tools to positively reshape the narrative.
As Ani explains, PIPOW is an onomatopoeic, action-packed acronym designed to help YOU be the superhero (problem solver) who defeats the villain (the issue). It’s such a simple framework but so effective in combating barriers, it focuses on -
Problem: Outline the issue
Impact: Explain how this is affecting the project
Plan: Detail steps to resolve the problem
Owner: Confirm roles and responsibilities
When: Provide a date for resolution
I’m inspired to think about this PIPOW framework in relation to Risk Management and how a client may view communication of ‘risk’.
Managing the sentiment, and reframing the ‘bad’ news, as Ani writes, helps the Project Manager be the superhero who defeats the villain!
Here is Ana’s full article, a highly recommended read!
https://medium.com/@animoller