The PRINCE2 Approach to Risk

Given the fact that all projects contain an amount of risk, how does PRINCE2 deal with this? Basically, it disciplines everyone involved with the project to regularly ask the following questions:

• What could potentially go wrong?
• What could the team do (or plan to do) that would reduce the effects of these threats on the project?
• What potential opportunities could occur?
• What could the team do to enhance the effects of these opportunities on the project?

One interesting thing to note is that PRINCE2 uses the word risk to cover potential opportunities as well as threats (more on this in the next section). Once you have asked these questions, PRINCE2 ensures that you carry out your responses to the risks.

How does PRINCE2 implement risk management? There are various parts to it, which I’ve set out here. Don’t worry—we’ll go through all of these in more depth throughout this chapter.