ABSTRACT
Risk is associated with all projects and business ventures undertaken by individuals and organizations regardless of their size, their nature, or time and place of execution and utilization. Risk is present in various forms and levels from small domestic projects, such as adding a deck to a residential house, to large multibillion-dollar projects, such as developing and producing a space shuttle. These risks could result in significant budget overruns, delivery delays, failures, financial losses, environmental damages, and even injury and loss of life. Examples include budget overruns during construction of custom residential homes; budget overruns and delivery delays experienced in the development and implementation of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control system; failures of space systems when launching military or satellite-delivery rockets or, for example, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space shuttle Challenger; and rollovers of sport utility vehicles (SUVs). In these examples, failures can lead to several consequence types simultaneously and could occur at any stage during the lifecycle of a project induced by diverse hazards, errors, and other risk sources. The success of a project, on the other hand, can lead to benefits and rewards.
