Risk control refers to the implementation of the preventive or contingency actions defined in the Risk Plan, to the development of alternative strategies for risk mitigation or even to the replanning of the project.
When a predefined risk occurs the Project Manager must normally invoke the Risk Management Plan and implement the actions described there. There are generally three possibilities:
| ● | The risk occurs as expected and the risk control actions defined in the Risk Management Plan are proven adequate for dealing with it. |
| ● | The risk occurs in a different manner and consequently the risk control actions must be modified appropriately |
| ● | A new unexpected risk is revealed, so the Risk Management Plan must be updated to define and describe the appropriate actions for mitigating it. |
It should be noted that during the entire risk management process, the Project Manager should be especially vigilant regarding the effect on the project’s scope, cost, schedule and quality. With the appropriate contingency plans established, many risks may not affect the above mentioned basic parameters of the project. However, when a risk event occurs that threatens one or more of these parameters, the Project Manager must determine the actions to be implemented in order to protect the project’s integrity. In this perspective, a change request may be issued which has to be managed formally according to the predefined Change Management process (refer to 7.5.6 and Chapter 6).