Indy Risk School

Target/Client Environment

For many projects, the most difficult area of risk is the target area or client group for whom the product is being developed. This is because many of the risks associated with this category are beyond the team's scope of control.

The complexity and risk of the target or client environment is related to the following factors:

• the number of different stakeholders, clients, installations (user sites) involved in developing, implementing and using the system;
• the level of client/user knowledge of and participation in the application and the project development process;
• the degree of Project Sponsor buy-in and support;
• the priority and impact of the application within the stakeholder areas; and
• the need for physical restructuring of offices, development of new sites, etc.

Again, as for the other risk categories, when considering the risks associated with the client area, it is important for the project team to consider the client area as independently as possible from the product risks and team risks.

Continuing our Museum metaphor, the next room in the museum contains Perspex cubes containing the various stakeholder groups and organisations that you and your team members have worked with. It is important here to emphasise that a High risk team does not mean that the stakeholder group is hopeless or incompetent. It simply means that "for this project" the stakeholder community does not have the relevant skills, buy-in and so on.

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