Several years ago (well, more than several), I had a mentor teach me some things about project management. One thing they taught me was the art of risk management.

Now I don’t want this blog post to be too much about risk management itself, other that it supposes you understand some of the basics of formalized risk management. Namely, the concept of risks having probability of occurrence, impact if realized, and mitigation strategies. And knowing what those previous three concepts are.

But I digress. Where I wanted to go with this was, I’ve realized that whenever I’m acting as a project manager, or looking through the lens in that role, is that I do it primarily through the lens of risk management. And here’s why.

Let’s say you’ve got a project to build and deliver 500 widgets. And your role is the PM. This is important…your role is NOT the lead engineer or the development team itself. But the PM.

So as the PM, what is the main thing you can do, especially during the beginning of the project? Here’s a hint: if your team is at all capable, then the answer is NOT to say, “ok team, here’s what we are going to do to build and deliver 500 widgets”. Your team already knows how to do that, and is probably already creating an engineering plan to do so. If you’re the PM, and not the lead engineer or SME, then your opinions and perspectives on “what the team needs to do next” is not the priority. And in fact if you go to the team and ask, “what are you doing to build and deliver 500 widgets?” you might even frustrate them.

But instead, look through the lens of risk management. Instead of focusing on the outcomes and deliverables themselves, focus on anything that prevents you from achieving those outcomes. What are all the things that could possibly happen to prevent you from building and delivering 500 widgets? Supplier problems, quality problems, external dependencies on testing or compliance teams, personnel resourcing challenges, etc.

Now all of a sudden you are asking the team a different question. “What are your concerns here, and what can I as the PM do to help alleviate or mitigate them?” Now you are being a helper, instead of just getting in the way constantly asking for status updates. You are helping move roadblocks and provide support.

If your role is a PM, or if your job duties involve being involved with project management, then my advice is to study and learn formal risk management, and utilize those techniques on your projects. When implemented properly, they can be a huge complement to the engineering efforts and can help your projects go much more smoothly.