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Risk reduction is a completely normal term in R&D. It just means experiment to raise confidence in a particular proposed approach, before going full scale produ

Risk reduction is a completely normal term in R&D. It just means experiment to raise confidence in a particular proposed approach, before going full scale production. It is meant to raise the TRL[1] of a technology, to gain experience with it. In my software day job, we write throw away code to test out an idea, and we call it proof of concept. It is used to find out early if the schedule for a feature is too optimistic by demonstrating that the approach doesn't work. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level

matt4077 9y ago
i feel like it should be "reduce risk" instead of "perform risk reduction", but I guess I can see that these (now?) mean slightly different things.
mturmon 9y ago
Just to add some details to the above well-informed comment: Sometimes people who are not used to management of large-scale projects are surprised by the development of tools and specialized vocabulary in project cost/schedule/risk assessment. The following is a pretty good summary of some common tools that integrate cost, schedule, and risk analysis: http://www.iceaaonline.com/ready/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/INT-04-Integrated-Cost-Schedule-Risk-Analysis.pdf http://www.iceaaonline.com/ready/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/... See in particular the first couple of slides on motivation, the "risk cube" on pages 19-20, the scatter plots of cost/schedule on pages ~30, and the example "risk lists" on page 57. Project management can be viewed as an assault on the remaining top items of the relevant risk list. All these concepts are standard practice for large aerospace projects. There will be risk analysts with stats or operations research PhDs running simulations and developing tailored methods just to assess risk of large projects. (Example: https://viterbi.usc.edu/sae/faculty/part-time-lecturers/jairus-hihn.htm https://viterbi.usc.edu/sae/faculty/part-time-lecturers/jair...)

matt4077 9y ago

i feel like it should be "reduce risk" instead of "perform risk reduction", but I guess I can see that these (now?) mean slightly different things.

mturmon 9y ago

Just to add some details to the above well-informed comment: Sometimes people who are not used to management of large-scale projects are surprised by the development of tools and specialized vocabulary in project cost/schedule/risk assessment. The following is a pretty good summary of some common tools that integrate cost, schedule, and risk analysis: http://www.iceaaonline.com/ready/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/INT-04-Integrated-Cost-Schedule-Risk-Analysis.pdf http://www.iceaaonline.com/ready/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/... See in particular the first couple of slides on motivation, the "risk cube" on pages 19-20, the scatter plots of cost/schedule on pages ~30, and the example "risk lists" on page 57. Project management can be viewed as an assault on the remaining top items of the relevant risk list. All these concepts are standard practice for large aerospace projects. There will be risk analysts with stats or operations research PhDs running simulations and developing tailored methods just to assess risk of large projects. (Example: https://viterbi.usc.edu/sae/faculty/part-time-lecturers/jairus-hihn.htm https://viterbi.usc.edu/sae/faculty/part-time-lecturers/jair...)