All projects have some element of risk and the project manager needs to consider the actions to take to reduce the effect of these risks. In this blog I will explain how some potential risks could impact your project.

If certain members of the team are unavailable on specific days, then those days may end up being useless as nobody else can fulfil that member’s role. In a different situation where the team consists of a few members and the absent member’s role isn’t so specialised, or another member of the teammate can fill in, then this will just add more pressure to the team and considering the team is of small size they will likely feel the absence of unavailable staff.

In another scenario, where a team member becomes so ill, that they can’t continue the project, what do you do? It is likely that you may not be able to afford a replacement member without breaking the budget, so one way to go about it is to train and up skill other team members so that they can fill the absent member's role. There might not even be enough time to train current members and this is where you have to go over the budget by taking the risk to hire someone new. This method will be used in extreme cases and where completing the project far outweighs the price of hiring someone new.

If your team members’ personal details are not kept securely there is the possibility that you could be prosecuted for not following the Data Protection Act 1994.

If you are conducting an online project, the same goes for this. Make sure that any sensitive data online is stored on a secure server.

Also if there we trip hazards around the office that led to a team member gaining serious injury, they can always sue you for not following the Health and Safety at Work Act.

If you allowed students to volunteer to work with you on a project so that they could gain experience and contribute to your work, and also there is the benefit that students could help you develop modern and creative work, you should keep in mind that business law could change.

If legislations change whilst the project is underway this could affect the way everything runs. For example, if there were a new law stating that students couldn’t volunteer to be on projects this would change how you used students and how you develop modern and creative work.

Or if there was a law that required you to pay the students on your project, then this will affect your budget and you would have to consider them as full working members on the project.

Let’s say your project involved building a mobile application on the Apple Store and a web application to go with it

This risk can either do 1 of 2 things it can either:
• Make your application redundant
• or make your application old compared to current standards

If browsers and operating systems are upgraded you need to make sure that your designs and functionalities are upgraded as well because if this is not done it you could deter potential users.

For example, if you are new to the web and you are looking for a social network that corresponds with your lifestyle and after a while of browsing you come across two websites. One has an old user interface and the other looks more modern, which one are you most likely to join?

I'm pretty sure that when we are on the web our eyes control our fingers, so you will most likely sign up to the more modern design before even considering which one does a better job at serving its purpose. To mitigate this you should always be prepared to rehire your previous team for an upgrade on your app or better still hire someone who permenantly will make constant tweaks and updates for your mobile app and web application.