ABSTRACT
Some method of categorization or sorting is necessary and inevitable when identifying risk. Because risks naturally lend themselves to categorization and distillation, one tool-the risk breakdown structure (RBS)—has evolved in recent years to serve that end. Introduced (in its current form) by Dr. David Hillson in 2002 at the PMI® Annual Seminars and Symposium (and adopted in the PMBOK® Guide Third Edition in 2004), the RBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the risks into logical, natural groupings associated with a project or an organization. (The Software Engineering Institute’s Taxonomy-Based Risk Identification actually developed the earliest RBSs in 1994.) The goal of the tool is to enhance understanding and recognition of risks in a project within the context of a logical framework.
