How I managed to have just as much fun with Risk Management as with Ideation
Say good-bye to boring FMEA workshops by introducing proven ideation methods to your risk management workshops.
In my role as an innovation project manager and workshop facilitator I regularly facilitate not only ideation workshops but also risk assessment workshops such as FMEA sessions.
After some time I made a frustrating discovery: On the one hand people would happily accept my invitation to an ideation workshop or would even ask me to invite them to “have this positive experience and enjoy the creativity”.
On the other hand I had a hard time to recruit people for FMEA workshops. All of a sudden everybody seemed too busy and too occupied to be able to participate.
And all of a sudden I realized: People do not like my FMEA workshops!
“Well this is just the way it is — risk sessions are dry!”
This is how my colleagues tried to comfort me. But I did not want to settle for the easy way and gave myself the following challenge:
“How might we make FMEA sessions as much fun as idea sessions?”
But isn’t a FMEA a serious task that MUST NOT be fun? Because if we mess up during an FMEA, nuclear plants might explode, patients might die or cars might crash — so no fun please!
When I started to think about the similarities and differences between ideation workshops and risk assessment workshops I found more similarities than one would assume.
The search for ideas and the search for risks have more in common than one would think.
This is the list of similarities between ideation workshops and risk workshops:
- No 100% success guarantee
You always face the challenge, that somebody comes into the room and finds something in a second, that a group did not find for a whole day (this might be a new idea or a new risk). - Using luck is smart — relying on luck is stupid
You need inspiration and flashes of genius, but at the same time you need a methodology that gives you structure. - Garbage in / Garbage out
Only if you have the right people in the room, something clever will emerge, the method alone does not guarantee good content. - Work with a planned sequence of methods
Start with methods to warm up and open the horizon, then go to the next level of detail, add an intermediate assessment and move on to the next level of detail. - Only precise questions lead to useful results
Ask specifically for the areas that are urgent, do not cover all areas with the same depth. - Preparation and follow-up are key
The workshop must be discussed and prepared in advance, the results must be condensed and evaluated afterwards. - Good results need time and effort
There are no (or very little) shortcuts to good results. - Mutual inspiration leads to new results
Listening to each other and spinning off other’s ideas is a key factor. - Keep the brains working
As a facilitator it is your task to keep the brains working in the room as hard and as long as possible.
With those principles in mind I started to re-think the way I approached FMEAs — and to say it right away: it worked.
Today people ask me to be invited to a risk assessment workshop “because I hear that it is fun to be part of it” — wow! A few years ago I would not have dreamed about this being possible.
So here’s the magic how to turn risk assessment workshops into an effective and energizing event.
- Prepare well
When I am an outside facilitator to a project I sit down for 3–4 hours to prepare the risk assessment workshops with the respective project manager. I want to understand the content and want to hear the project manager’s opinion what the main risk areas are. I especially focus on areas that are new to this project, that have made trouble in the past or I’ll just ask the project manager: “What keeps you awake at night?”.
My experience is that roughly 60% of the relevant risks can already be found during the preparatory work, so for me this already is the first part of the risk assessment, not only its preparation.
2. Prototypes, Pictures and Visualizations are key
From ideation workshops we all know that pictures are a crucial element to trigger new ideas — so let’s use this technique for risk finding too! Pictures help people to quickly dive into a project, to understand it and to empathize with it. This helps them to find more and more relevant risks quicker.
3. From Rough to Detail
Start with very open questions such as “What do you think is risky about this system?”, “What could go wrong?”, “Where should we invest our risk assessment time?”.
Then I ask the team to write as many risks on as many sticky notes as possible.
I like to use the Ishikawa-Diagram with its 5M (Man, Method, Material, environMent, Management) as an opening method.
Then I give them an overview on the systems and its functions and I try to keep their brains working by constantly asking “What can go wrong?” “Write it on sticky notes!”
Do not directly dive into details and get lost in them! Usually FMEA sessions directly start with detailed problem 1 and end with detailed problem 1001.
4. Rate emotionally and rationally
Usually rating in an FMEA is done in three analytical steps: “What is the severity, what is the occurrence probability and what is the detection probability?”
We all know how challenging it can be to agree as a group on one value and often 30% of the time in an FMEA is wasted on the discussion whether the value is a 3 or a 3.5 (on a scale of 10…).
So I prefer to first rate emotionally: “Put sticky dots on the items with high risks.” Then we will discuss those and rate them in detail but let’s not waste time with rating low risks.
If I see highly rated risks (many dots) I often ask “Why is it rated so high?” to find out whether its due to severity, or occurrence etc.
5. Work Time Boxed
Time boxing should be applied to FMEAs. Give yourself and your team a defined time frame (let’s say half a day or a day) and set the goal that you want to have explored and assessed the most relevant risk areas at the end of this time (not all risk areas).
This directly leads to an attitude that you constantly assess whether you are investing your time well and whether you are tackling the areas with the highest risks.
6. Focus on Hot Topics
The usual way of going through a FMEA is to go through the system function by function from A to Z. But this like going through a phone book from A to Z when your task is to find as many celebrities’ addresses as possible.
Wouldn’t it be better to start with the question “Give me all the names of celebrities that you know!” and then search for their address. And when you can’t think of any names any more then yo start the linear search.
The same applies to risk finding: First go through the known high-risk areas and solve the problems (if they are not already solved) and then go through the system in a linear search and find additional areas.
Constantly ask the team “what is the next topic that we should concentrate on”
With this strategy I always have the team working on the hot topics and if my time is up I am sure that we have invested our time well and worked on relevant topics and haven’t started to read the phone book starting at the letter A while we all know that the interesting part is somewhere close to the letter Z.
Sounds logical, doesn’t it? But still most FMEAs go through the functions in an alphabetical or a geographical order but not in a risk based order.
7. Do the administrative work alone
Your job as a facilitator is to have the brains working on the risk topic as much as possible — but unfortunately in FMEA workshops people spend a lot of time watching somebody else typing risks into a spread sheet, correcting typos or searching for the right words.
Avoid doing administrative tasks in the team — this is better done alone.
Do as a team what is best done as a team: finding and assessing risks. Do alone what is best done alone: fine-tune wording, document results, change formats etc.
8. Be creative in the methods you use
Keep people’s attention by changing your methods. Do not fill out a spread sheet on a lousy beamer that nobody can read. Use sticky notes, paper, pens whiteboards, make people move in the room, give them a break, have refreshments ready — anything that draws their attention back to the task and keeps them motivated.
9. Focus on Mitigation Measures
Make sure that you keep track of mitigation measures and assign them. Often we spend a lot time of defining and rating risks as precisely as possible and as a consequence we run out of time to define and assign mitigation measures.
And again: ensure that when you discuss mitigation measures that you focus on measures for the high risk areas and do not waste your time on measures for low risks.
10. Have Fun
Motivated people work better than non-motivated people. And a key to motivation is fun. So create a structure and an environment that brings fun and motivation to the team.
My experience is, that if you follow these rules, sooner or later the word will spread that …
Your risk assessment workshops are just as much fun as ideation workshops.
Read more on “What people really think during FMEA workshops (and why this should worry you)”
