Tailor+the+Standard+Process

=toc 16.0 Tailor the Standard Process= Every industry has standards but have ways that you can personalize or make yours different from the norm. You can buy a standard dell laptop at Wal-Mart or you can go to dell and customize your computer the way that you want to. This section covers the topic of tailoring the standard risk management process to the need of your project. Tailoring provides the flexibility required to modify a standard process to adjust for differences among projects. The following topics are covering ways and how to go about tailoring the standard risk management process.

16.1 Review the Standard Process
Before you can tailor the standard process to what you need, you have to know what’s in the standard process. You should review the standard process to get an understanding of the sets of metrics that would enable project comparison. The standard process is a prototype that should be followed but also you could have variation of a process based on the project. Not everything can be standardized, some elements of the standard process cannot be tailored and these elements are:
 * Risk statement- The risk statement should not vary between projects that could cause confusion on defining the risk.
 * Risk List- is what holds the issues that are facing the project. A risk list can’t be tailored, unless you want to take a risk off of it, and that would just be misleading.
 * Risk action plan- is the attributes of an action plan and should be consistent. The risk action plan should be an organizational plan, so that everyone is on the same page.
 * Risk Measures – is the definitions of risk measures enable organization risk metrics.
 * Risk database- The risk database cannot be tailored since the whole organization uses it, you should be able to move from one project to another project group within the organization and you should not have trouble using the database, since it’s the same one that you were using before

16.2 Examine Tailoring Options
After knowing what can’t be tailored, you can now start checking on the things that can be tailored. The standard process will let you know what can be tailored. Each part of the risk process can have tailored options. The table below shows the options for each process. The tailored options are as simple as when to use the risk assessment method, to how to collect risk measures. You should use the best combination of tailored process that would work best for your project. Your project might require that you add more information about a risk, and you want to add more fields to the risk management form. Another project might want someone else beside the project leader to have authority over identified risk. when to use the risk appraisal survey implementation of the risk database || who has authority for identified risk how to prioritize risk || Modification of the planning section of the risk management form Addition of fields in the risk database to support risk action planning || Modification of the tracking section of the risk management form addition of fields in the risk database to support risk action planning || Additional techniques and tools for risk resolution Modification of the resolution section of the risk management form ||
 * **Process Element** || **Tailoring Options** ||
 * Identify risk || when to use the risk assessment method
 * Analyze risk || How to delegate the responsibility of identified risk
 * Plan risk || How to generate risk action plans
 * Track risk || How to track risk action plans
 * Resolve risk || How to implement risk action plans

16.3 List Unique Project Factors
After learning what you can tailor to meet your project’s need, you must now research your own project to find unique factors that would make tailor something from the standard risk management process. The more complex the project is, the more rigorous the process is. The main factors that decide the difference in a project is:
 * 1) Size- the smaller the project is, the smaller the risk are. A project with 50 people is facing a higher risk than a project with 10 people. Communicating, scheduling and managing would be tougher.
 * 2) Budget – The tighter the budget, the higher the risk. If you are on a tight budget, you can’t afford to have missteps or overspend or miscalculate.
 * 3) Structure – the more interface in the organizational structure, the higher the risk. The more you have to interface with other things, is a better chance that misunderstandings would happen.

16.4 Recommended Process Changes
After finding the factors that make your project in need of tailoring the standard process, a project team member can recommend process changes. The process changes can be either to use a better process that ‘s more suitable to the project, or they can use a faster process that takes less time to implement, or they can use a cheaper process, that would cut cost. Based on the findings about your unique project factors, you would choose what would work best for you, if I was on a tight budget I would use a cheaper process, it would give me some breathing room in my budget.

16.5 Document Standard Process Deviations
To make the process change official, you need to get a waiver form that documents and helps projects customize standard processes. A waiver form is one of the mechanisms used to help customize projects. You need to list the changes and the reason in the waiver form.