While building background for an upcoming NDIA (National Defense Industry Association) and PMI conference board meeting on Risk and Opportunity management, I came across (rediscovered actually) the California Management Review. In there was a recent paper from one of my favorite authors, Christoph Loch. Loch has written on a variety of topics around risk and risk management.
My favorite learning is his Managing Project Uncertainty: From Variation to Chaos, in which he classifies four levels of uncertainty:
- Variation - comes from many small influences and yields a range of values on a particular activity
- Foreseen Uncertainty - are identifiable and understood influences that the team cannot be sure will occur
- Unforeseen Uncertainty - can’t be identified during project planning
- Chaos - Even the basic structure of the project plan is uncertain, as is the case when technology is in upheaval or when research, not development, is the main goal.
The paper titled Lost Roots: How Project Management Came to Emphasize Control Over Flexibility and Novelty was an eye opener.
