ABSTRACT
Strategic decisions to select which projects an organisation should invest in are taken without certain knowledge of what the future will hold and how successful the project will be. Faced with this uncertainty, we can only attempt to predict the factors that can impact on a project. Once we can identify these factors and their possible impacts we can call them ‘risks’ and attempt to analyse and respond to them. Risks can be both positive, such as embedded opportunities, perhaps to do more business with a new client or customer in future, or negative, things that can go wrong, and those indeed require more focus in most risk management processes. Project risk assessment should therefore begin well before the organisation makes its decision about whether to undertake a project, or if faced with several options, which alternative to choose.
