ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on risk and in particular systemic risk. However, taking a systems perspective is relevant for all elements of project management, not just risk. Projects have always been risky, and therefore, understanding both the entirety and nature of risks is important. Risks create uncertainties in projects, and uncertainties create risks. Systemic risk increases with the increase in project complexity. This frequently arises due to projects involving a wider range of stakeholders. Helping project managers take a more comprehensive view of unknowns and risks can be achieved by actively increasing the viewpoints taken. Unless a thoughtful consideration of risks is undertaken, effective allocation of resources to manage the risks is likely to be challenging. Taking a systems perspective to risk modelling does demand a different paradigm from that of the more traditional forms and therefore before exploring systemic risk analysis tools, some comparison of these two paradigms will be presented so as to provide an understanding of the differences.
