You're facing conflicting risk tolerance levels with project stakeholders. How can you find common ground?

Ensure all stakeholders are bought-into the project scope and objectives. This will facilitate the necessary alignment of risk tolerance levels so that everyone is on the same page when assessing risks.

This would require engagement with all the stakeholders to analyze the risks and document a risk management/mitigation plan. Conduct regular meeting to review the risks and update the stakeholders on the progress.

Gerentes de projetos ou de produtos procuram sempre extrair o melhor das suas atividades a fim de obter o maior lucro e satisfação do cliente e por isto acabam sendo mais ousados. O gerente de riscos também deve buscar pela lucratividade e satisfação, porém, o foco está na segurança e continuidade do negócio. Ao verificar que está passando os niveis de risco em relação a tolerância do negócio o gerente de riscos deve ter habilidade em mostrar isso ao lider de projetos/produtos através de apresentações ou exemplos práticos, evidenciando que não se está criando uma barreira as ideias, e sim uma busca em conjunto pelo sucesso do negócio.

Engage all stakeholders in open discussions. Encourage transparency and ensure that everyone’s concerns are heard and documented. This builds trust and opens the door for collaborative problem-solving. Use Case: During a critical project at Sterling Bank & Trust, open engagement with stakeholders allowed us to uncover underlying concerns about data security. This transparency helped us address fears proactively, leading to a consensus on the acceptable risk level.

Educate stakeholders about the risks and their implications. Drawing from my experience leading risk management at G1VE | Technologies, where educating the team on NIST cybersecurity frameworks and DFARS compliance was crucial. Provide insights into how each risk can affect project outcomes, and ensure everyone understands the trade-offs involved. 4. Explore Alternatives: Investigate and present alternative strategies to manage risks. Propose various mitigation plans, emphasizing their pros and cons. Highlight successful case studies from my tenure at Sterling Bank & Trust, where alternative risk mitigation strategies led to better compliance and risk management outcomes.

In my experience, the "common ground" often lacking in conversations around risk is clarity about how much uncertainty is acceptable regarding achievement of objectives. When this is not well defined or communicated, stakeholders (who are often not the ones defining objectives) are put in the position of making their own determination of acceptability of risk. And, while stakeholders' perspectives in determining the impact of a particular event or occurrence are valuable and important, this disconnect can result in misaligned decision-making. While it is not always easy, regular and open communication about objectives amongst ALL decision-makers and stakeholders is fundamental to the success of any risk management process.