By: Nagesha Mysore Nanjundashetty
(a conversation between father & daughter)
‘What are you puzzled with? You seem to be lost somewhere?’
Rima scratched her head and stared at me with a blank look written all over her eyes. When I see
that look, I know she is more than troubled by something unusual; probably something new which
she is not comfortable with.
‘ Seems something new is bothering you?’
‘A kind of…’ came short response in a half hearted voice smeared with a low tone…
‘ Guess I can help.. at least I give a try, if you wish..’
‘ Not sure if you can..’
‘why?’
‘ because I don’t know myself what exactly is the problem or rather how to explain my problem..’
I looked at her for a moment. That moment of silence was to give her some more space and hope
she continue and say something. But she didn’t.. the stare in her eyes continued the way it was.
‘ Look Rima, it is not uncommon that you get into such confusing situation.. at least I am almost
always get in and out of that everyday…’
‘Really?! Is it so common? I thought it is so rare and unique..’
‘Why don’t we put it to test by trying it out? Don’t worry about where to start and what to say. Don’t
try to find a perfect way to frame your thoughts. Just start casually and we figure out what is
bothering you..’
‘Start with anything in mind? Even with something that might not me related to what is bothering
me?’
‘Let me help it a bit. Start with how did the day start for you..’
‘Are you serious dad?’
‘ you bet on it..!’
She paused for a while and said… ‘ ok.. in that case I did it as usual like every other day. Wake up
from bed and did daily rituals as usual..and then..’
‘Wait dear.. just give me a space to ask some question in between.. you had good sleep when you get up?’
‘ not really.. not sound sleep like every day.. at least I woke up three times a least, last night..’
‘Really? I am surprised! My angel always get good sleep when ever she go to bed. What went wrong
last night?’
‘Oh! I cant figure out what went wrong but I was thinking about an assignment task that I should
handle this morning..’
‘Was it bothering you so much..?’
‘ Not really.. in fact, the assignment topic is new and unique but consciously , I was not thinking
about it at all. I knew it is a new challenge but I didn’t even thinking loud about it..’
‘ May be it was bothering in your sub-consciousness without your knowledge? Why don’t you tell me
about your challenging assignment you need to handle today? That may lead us to clear the air?’
She again paused and stared at the window. That is her style of thinking what to say. I give her few
moments so that she gathers on some content.
‘ Do you remember about the project work I am doing about as part of my research?’
‘ You told me about it.. you are cooking something related to the topic ‘Risk’ – right?’
She seemed astonished. Perhaps she did not expect me to be remembering in that detail. That
actually helped her to be charged a bit and I saw her eyes brightened further.
‘Then it is easy.. yes, I am working on this topic and our team was asked to research and pool all
theory behind risk and risk management in projects. We did that quite well and prepared a nice
research document..’
‘ That seems nice. Did you get in to any obstacle?’
‘Not an obstacle.. rather probably yes?’
‘ Tell me more..’
‘ We had submitted our research report to review. Our professor yesterday called us and told all we
have done is just copy paste from google search..’
I thought, that is how most reports are made today; especially the academic reports. ‘ so he was not
happy about it?’
‘ not like that.. he said it is good compilation and nice packaging. But he wanted to know, based on
our study and understanding what value we are bringing individually for the topic – apart from the
theoretical literature from google..’
I thought this professor must be a good one. He is challenging them to think and learn rather than
copy paste. But I cannot say it loud to my dear girl.
‘ I see..’
‘ He said, we should think loud about it independently and individually and add a chapter on our perspective which is not found in our study so far.. and we should not do it together; each one of us should come with our own perspectives adding to the core report we have prepared. It should not be a bookish stuff again, but rather should have some practical relevance..’
Now I started getting a feel of why she was so troubled. Now she has to think and do something
which she knows only in theory; but she has to cook something like a pro, not like a book worm.
‘Dear.. I think I can help..’
It was clear that she did not believe that I mean it..
‘It’s ok dad, I will find some way to handle it..’
‘Listen to me dear… just try me.. anyway, you are not going to lose anything, if you do. If it is not
fitting you can always discard..’
She again went silent with a blank stare at her eyes but the face reflecting a half hearted question
mark. I should make a move quickly and get into the core of the topic.. else, she will distract herself
away from what I am saying. So, I jumped directly to the core..
‘ I think I can help you figure out a not so common way of how a risk can be systematically identified.
Though once identified, how they are managed, how a risk life cycle works – you can find a lot of
literature and experience in the field, but I guarantee you that not much insight or tools and
techniques exists to systematically identify the risk in the first place. It purely go by the experience
and expertise of the team members. A new project manager with less experience many times has to
burn his fingers and learn..’
‘Dad.. are you serious? Are you sure you have such an approach which nobody or not many knows?’
‘Tough to believe it right? Though it is pure common sense driven it is not so common practice I
would say. And amazing thing about the approach is – once it is initiated and stabilized you can find
opportunities to automate them, integrate AI into it and derive deeper insights from them using the
data analytics approaches / tools in the field..’
She seemed to gain some interest when I specifically touched upon the core topic which is bothering her.. ‘ dad you sound interesting but are you sure you have something unique that is new and uncommon?’
I sensed her hesitation .. ‘dear, as I mentioned, you are not going to lose anything.. just hear it and
decide if it makes sense or not. Then you take a call..’
She nodded in agreement. I see the sense of reluctance fading away further – when she slanted her head in interest, a stance indicating her curiosity when she is really keen to know.
‘ Ok let us debate on it and see how we can do it. With the conversation on going, you will be able to
grasp the gist of it, which you later articulate and present the way you want. I will just give you the
conceptual frame work..’
‘Agree.. you know, I don’t want you to spoon feed, dad..let me build my own story’ told my smart girl.
‘Ok.. let me start with a question – tell me, why or how a risk happens?’
‘ I guess it is due to uncertainty? We are not sure of something and we flag it as risk..?’
‘You know, we recognize them sometimes intuitively and sometimes by its occurrence. When we do that, most of the time they might be the symptoms that we are recognizing but the core reason behind may not be obvious..’
‘as you have told me many times – according to theory of constraints (TOC) philosophy, it is better to
discover core issue and address it, rather fighting out with many many symptoms at large…right?’
‘wow! As usual , that is my smart girl – you identified the core element correctly and also your
understanding about TOC point blank. You are right -uncertainty is one of the key reason behind the
occurrence of risks. You know that uncertainty is the most common thing one need to deal with in
almost all project initiatives. If you are a project manager how do you usually deal with it?’
She thought for a while and answered: ‘guess we make some assumptions to deal with the
uncertainties?’
‘Right… that is what most of the people would do. Try and figure out reasonable assumptions, by
considering the constraints and challenges..’
‘But dad, then what is so unique here? If this what most of the project managers do, there is nothing
special about it right?’
‘have a little patience my darling, I am coming to it. I just wanted to make sure we keep all related
aspects in view and proceed. As we noticed in the beginning uncertainty is the main contributor for
the risk – you agree?’
‘Yes, that is the key factor. Let us agree on that and proceed..’
‘Then help me to answer this question – why is there uncertainty? why it happens?’
‘Is it because of constraints?’
‘No dear – constraints rather impose certainty because you know the exact constraint within which you should operate. For example, if budget is a constraint, you already know what is the cost limits the project has to deliver. If time line is the constraint, you know by when you must deliver – and so on.. some constraints may contribute to uncertainty but they are not the key drivers of uncertainty’
‘Then what is that key driver of uncertainty?’
‘ you want me to tell you or you figure out? I will again give a clue – it again stems from the principles of TOC..’
‘ Are you talking about the dependent events – concept of TOC, dad?’
I could not avoid looking at my girl with great admiration. ‘You almost nailed it my girl. In this real
world every thing, every process for example work in collaboration. One feeds the other creating a
chain of events. In other words each event is an outcome of something else and each event will be a
trigger for another event or occurrence.. do you agree?’
‘ Dad are you saying ‘dependency’ is the key driver causing uncertainty?’
‘Exactly! Once again my smart girls figured it out quick! Dependency exists basically because we have
dependent events in real world.. in fact a lot of them.. some times, rather most of the times there
are more than one dependency looping among them selves making it a complex web..’
‘ I guess I am able to see where you are coming from..! are you telling me that figure out a way to
find dependencies and address or monitor them closely to discover risks?’
‘ haha.. not bad again!.. yes. Do you agree that by focusing on dependencies you are able to predict
the risks much more systematically?’
‘ But dad, that may be correct if we have a way to identify the dependencies in the first place.
Secondly, there would be so many dependencies around – how one can figure out everything in a
fool proof way?’
‘ Rima.. think about it. When you do a project plan , define work packages, activities and tasks don’t
you sequence them respecting their order of occurrence and also their dependencies?’
‘ yes I do.. in fact I always did it with some tools like MS project..’
‘No matter which tool you use but you will be able to identify the dependency and link them
accordingly… once they are visible , you can evaluate each one of them for their potential risks and list them to track through the risk life cycle..’
‘ You mean to say we have to review all dependencies like that? There may be so many of them!’
‘ Hear me first.. yes there could be many but all of them need not be of same severity or importance..’
‘but still we have to analyze all of them..’
‘ Offcourse if you are automating or finding a data analytics or AI sort of solution you can do it.
Speaking theoretically you can even do it manually – though it looks tedious and cumbersome..’
‘Dad you are sounding like we don’t need to do it for all. Is it so?’
‘Yes that is what I think..’
‘but how?’
‘think my little guzzle! You are smarter than me’
‘Give me a hint again..!’
‘ It is the same hint – think of the concept and apply a little bit of TOC.. then you will see it..’
She went silent for next 5 to 10 minutes. I am sure her mind must have been juggling with all
possibilities and attempting to figure out the conceptual dimension of it. Then she opened her eyes and gazed at me.
‘Dad.. is it because of the relationship between core problem and its symptoms?’
‘Can you elaborate..?’
‘I mean, if you focus and find out the core problem which may be the mother of hundreds of
resulting symptoms, then instead of fire fighting with endless symptoms, we can focus all our energy
on core problem which basically absorbs all those symptoms even before they occur..’
‘That concept I understand and we both know it. But how do you apply that in this scenario of
limiting your focus on limited number of dependencies?’
‘Don’t you see dad ? it logically flows!’
‘ But how? Explain me’
‘Come on dad.. if you connect all events based on dependency, they become a chain right? Does it
mean each and ever link in the chain need to be addressed? If you trace from the last one and go
backwards to its root dependency, you just focus and address that root dependency- that ensures all
other linked dependencies, which are like symptoms will automatically disappear. Right?’
‘Smart… Very smart! So, now you see the connection? If you identify the core dependency– which is nothing but first level dependency, figure out the risks that could be arising out of those
dependencies and take action to fix them, that ensures the downstream risks of that dependency
will be absorbed or eliminated – in the worst case simplified..’
‘So dad, you suggest to use dependency at level 1 and use it as a driver to identify and manage the
risk, ensuring the symptoms are out of the door from beginning itself..’
‘Yes darling.. continue the approach keeping this concept in mind. Even if the risk is not managed
properly and it results in next level dependency or risk, you can use the same concept and continue.
Once the risk is listed, then you follow the typical risk life cycle tasks – like identify its probability, its
impact to give it a rating like – high, medium, low and track its severity like – Red, Amber, Green and
define measures to handle it. You track them until they are resolved; some may not be resolved and
become issues but you deal with them in a similar manner..’
‘Does it mean to say we can figure out all risks using this approach dad?’ she looked more confident
now and looked like figuring out the loop holes..
‘Dear, you know we are not living in a perfect world. Just like everything, uncertainty is also not static or fixed. Surprises may occur changing the assumptions and reality. That may impact the
dependencies as well. So, you need to keep on factoring them and adjusting accordingly. But then, it will become a review on the main baseline that you have identified. So, the approach remains more
or less same – but you keep tweaking the flow based on the influencing factors that occur in the
surroundings. If no impact seen, then in principle you continue with your baseline. If there is some
impact– tweak the baseline to a updated version and continue with the same approach..’
‘Wow dad! I think this is really something different than what usually they expect to see.. I will take
this hypothesis and present from my side.. but meanwhile, thank you very much dad for leading me to this.. in fact, now I am curious to hear more from you on the phrase you are mentioning..’
‘Which phrase?’
‘ That Risk Life cycle management..’
‘Oh no.. ! that will be another long discussion.. definitely not for today..!’
‘ Yes it is for another day dad.. today I have to summarize all we had figured out and put it in a
presentable way to make my dear professor happy and thrilled.. hope he gets impressed with this
dimension we are bringing..’
‘ I guess he would definitely appreciates it because he would be intuitively knowing it.. how do you
plan to present it?’
‘hmm.. I am thinking of a special way to do it. If I make it like a theoretical paper document, the
readers miss the point or it may become another boring theory for them’
‘So..?’
‘How about this? The way we had this conversation now – I write the same like a story or episode
and attach it with a introductory note. Reader reads it like a interesting conversation between a
father and his daughter – like we had, just now. If reader is in agreement with our view and
understands the concept like we do, they could think of figuring out ways to realize it in reality.. if he is not in agreement – also fine; he just have a nice experience of reading a story and just he can just leave it at that stage!’
‘Great! Do you think you can remember all those points we discussed? If you need me to review your
story let me know!’
‘No dad.. not needed. You know your girl is very smart! once we started our key conversation, I
already started voice recording in my mobile phone.. ! I just need to listen to it once or twice before I write it as a story..’
‘You smart devil!..’ I screamed at her softly, sounding appreciation of her mindfulness, which
inevitably got was reflected through my eyes.
‘Thank you once again dad.. you are my real hero’ my guzzle ran away like a swan and disappeared
into her room.
With a fulfilled sense of pride and satisfaction, I walked to the kitchen to brew a new cup of coffee.
Author: Nagesha Mysore Nanjundashetty
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