Risk Management War Games

Leaders: Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister

Length: 1 day

Overview:

In this one-day exercise, Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister throw you into a CIO-level management team and simulate for you the experience of running an organization where risk management is the norm rather than the exception. You will make strategic decisions vital to your company's health and welfare, aided by risk management artifacts produced for you by your risk officer and the local risk management efforts going on inside each project of your domain.

Expect to pick up on the fly the use (and abuse) of such risk management tools as risk diagrams, Monte-Carlo simulation, metrics-based estimation and feedback, EVR (Earned Value Running) diagrams, and varying degrees of incremental project structures ... up to and including XP. The wargame is all example and no abstraction. You learn as you go.

Each team will manage a company in a highly competitive market sector. A central simulation will arbitrate, essentially playing the role of the market. Success or failure of your team's company will depend on your mix of prudent risk management with audacious risk-taking. The object of the exercise is to give you the simulated experience of managing in a company where risk management is alive and well and fully supported. Special Bonus: Each participant will receive a copy of DeMarco and Lister's new book Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects.

Tim Lister on Risk Management: