Chapter 7 Instructor Guide: Risk Assessment and Mitigation
INSTRUCTOR GUIDE
Note: The instructor guide provides ideas for how to engage with the chapter. It can be adapted to an instructor’s pedagogical context, and is intended only to suggest approaches. There are myriad ways to deliver content depending on student level, delivery mode, and time allotted to a given topic, and users are encouraged to be creative in any way that suits their style and needs. Learners may also use the instructor guide as a tool for a self-guided experience.
Learning Goals
- Identify the 3 components of risk management
- List 7 examples of risk types
- Distinguish between quantitative and qualitative risk management
- Identify the 4 strategies for risk management
- Correlate risk to a business case
Summary of the Chapter
This chapter provides details about risk management. It identifies the various modules of risk management, the different types of risks that may occur, how to analyze and prioritize the risks depending on their impact and magnitude, and how to control or handle the risk scenario. One section explores how vital risk management may be for a company and how it relates to corporate values.
It is not true that risk management will only ever generate dramatic changes within the organization. There are certain disadvantages to incorporating risk management into an organization. The chapter also reveals ways to limit and mitigate the risks involved with the risk management implementation.
Considerations for Lesson Planning
Risk management can be a broad and deep series of lessons, but the course for which this OER has been created involves only one full class session devoted to risk management and mitigation. Given that learners are graduate-level professionals, they are capable (and often familiar) with assessing risk in different professional environments.
It can be helpful to “ground” the risk management and mitigation discussion in a particular sector and/or with a particular application (in the case of computer science classes). Learners can create their own risk management plan based on the projects they are investigating and then the rubric can be applied to other models/applications in order to identify whether the rubric can be used universally or if it is specific. In addition, instructors can supply various scenarios where risk calculations can be completed to assess the quantitative risks of a scenario.
In general, one of the most effective ways to explore risk management and mitigation is to do the work. Apply the concepts to particular examples and invite students to generate their own qualitative and quantitative assessments of the risk followed by generating a fulsome risk management/mitigation plan.
Assessment Strategies
For risk management and mitigation plans, it can be useful to assess learners’ work based on breadth of coverage; i.e., determine whether the learners’ investigation is comprehensive and appropriately articulates the levels of risk. Learners could offer mitigation plans for each identified risk and demonstrate the levels at which risk would be deemed too great for what can be tolerated in a particular context.
In general, assessments could include the creation of the risk matrices and management documents themselves (e.g., readability, comprehensiveness, clarity, etc.) and the qualitative explanations that learners provide to articulate the mitigation plans and the “no-go” triggers.
I. Horvath, “Difference between Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Analysis,” Invensis Learning Blog, July 16, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.invensislearning.com/blog/qualitative-vs-quantitative-risk-analysis/. [Accessed: 01-Jan-2022].R. S. Kaplan, H. B. Leonard, and A. Mikes, “The Risks You Can’t See,” Harvard Business Review, (Nov-Dec 2020). [Online]. https://hbr.org/2020/11/the-risks-you-cant-foresee. [Accessed Jan. 1, 2022].
P. Khirieva, S. A. Martynov, А. А. Bystritskiy, L. V. Adamyan, W. Beni, G. Tellechea, and S. M. Najjar, “There is a Definition of Risk by a Formula: ‘risk = probability X loss’. What Does It Mean?,” ResearchGate, November 12, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/post [Accessed: 02-Jan-2022].
C. Larmore, “The Disadvantages of Risk Management Software,” Bizfluent, February 11, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://bizfluent.com/. [Accessed: January 1, 2022].“Risk Management,” Corporate Finance Institute, April 27, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/strategy/risk-management/. [Accessed: January 1, 2022].
T. Six, “15 Categories for Project Risks,” Ten Six Consulting, February 18, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://tensix.com/15-categories-for-project-risks/. [Accessed: 02-Jan-2022].
L. Tucci, “What is Risk Management and Why is It Important?” SearchCompliance, October 12, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://searchcompliance.techtarget.com/definition/risk-management. [Accessed: January 1, 2022].
