This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Laurent Bossavit. Original Post: Optimism management Feed Title: Incipient(thoughts) Feed URL: http://bossavit.com/thoughts/index.rdf Feed Description: You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all alike. You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all different. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Laurent Bossavit Latest Posts From Incipient(thoughts)

My postings on risk management have attracted some attention and feedback recently, yet I'm wondering if risk is entirely the appropriate focus of our "management".

If by "manage" we mean something like "control the amount or supply of something", then risk is for the most part not something we can manage. What we can control is our attitude to risk - and in that respect, the most serious problem in our industry is optimism, the belief that we can make plans and expect things to reliably unfold according to these plans.

Optimism has its place in project management activities. It is a key component of entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship is at the heart of the sort of management which projects require. Thus, I often argue that optimism is the occupational disease of managers in project contexts, from startups' CEOs to project managers in larger enterprises.

At the same time, optimism may well be a leading contributor of project failure, as a factor of blindness to project risks. "We're not really late yet, we'll catch up". "It's just a trivial change, it shouldn't take five minutes". "I don't see why our customers wouldn't like that". We can all reel off dozens of these phrases which are usually the harbingers of project disasters.

I suspect it's optimism, not risk, that most needs to be managed.