Question

5.Give 2 examples for each of the followings Risks that may apply to your project, 1Known unknown, 2 Unknown unknowns

Answer 1

1. Known unknown-----------Known unknowns are the risks that the organization is aware of but is unaware of the size and effect of the risk. An organization may know that there is a risk that rain may affect business operations, but the lack of knowledge about how much rain there will be makes it hard to make concrete plans.

1. ex---------- You are preparing for a media interview, and the journalist has sent through a list of questions. These questions are your known knowns, and, given that you have the opportunity, it is easy to prepare and rehearse strong responses, no matter how thorny the questions may be. However, you know that it’s possible the journalist has prepared some additional questions. These are your known unknowns. You may be uncertain what the journalist will ask, but you can prepare a range of responses, anticipating any challenging or complicated questions.

2. You are informed about that one of your team members may require a leave during the peak time of a project. Since you already know about the risk, you will perhaps make an arrangement and compensate the work on his/her behalf.

2. Unknown unknowns----Unknown unknowns are the most dangerous types of risks. These are risks which the company doesn’t even know that they don’t know. A company may expand to a new area and not know that the new area experiences extreme weather. The danger here is that since the organization is unaware of the existence of the risk, it cannot manage the risk, which can result in disaster.

ex---------------1. Disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, and the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 were unanticipated yet extremely damaging. It might seem that such disasters could not have been expected or imagined and therefore not preventable.

Weather: Suppose project team members were flying for a project evaluation in South Carolina when all flights are suddenly cancelled due to a serious storm. Consequently, the project team couldn’t make a meeting and unable to return home for a few days.

Sudden Family Death: Prior to a project meeting, the instructional design lead gets the unfortunate news of his father’s death. As a result, there will be a delay in making decisions on crucial events without the knowledge and evaluation of the instructional designer.