About risk and opportunity management
Risks and opportunities are integral to any kind of organization. All businesses have a model to predict risks that will impact their operations, progress, or results, analyze the probability of impact, and propose effective control measures that will eventually help mitigate the impact. This allows for emergency preparedness and efficient resolutions in case of risk impact.
Similarly, organizations flourish based on the availability of opportunities. So it is vital to seek the opportunities well ahead and earn ample time to turn those opportunities into achievable business goals.
Risk and opportunity handling in an agile model
Agile model facilitates risk management as an inbuilt process that can be accommodated within the scope of the ongoing project. The framework supports feedback loops like sprint reviews and retrospection that help identify risks periodically.
The model of delivery is often iterative and incremental with short cycles of development, resulting in regular releases. And this iterative development of deliverables needs a proper risk management process that Zoho Sprints is equipped to provide.
The same principles are applicable to opportunities as well. Timely identification of opportunities and subsequent action plans help in the advancement of your business and organization.
Benefits
The benefits of risk and opportunity management in Zoho Sprints:
- Record and monitor risks and opportunities separately at workspace level.
- Assign impact and probability values to the identified risks and opportunities.
- Capture details of mitigation control and resulting changes in case of risks and action plan and resulting improvement in case of opportunities.
- Track the progress of risk mitigation and opportunity achievement through various statuses.
- Use the risk and opportunity matrix to assess the levels of impact, probability of occurrence, and likelihood of reducing risk impact or maximizing opportunity potential.
- Revise risk and opportunity classes automatically through evaluation approvals.
- Quantify and analyze the progress of risks and opportunities using the information available on the visually comprehensive dashboard.
- Use the derived risk and opportunity related data to minimize or eliminate negative impact and propagate growth.
Components of risk management
Risk register: Record the risks identified in your business with details of the risk category, impact level, and probability of occurrence. View the added risks in the register.
Dashboard: View the risk dashboard to get insights on the count of risks, the completion percentage of mitigation efforts, status of progress across risk categories, number of risks in each class, user engagement, and so on.
Risk matrix: Maintain a risk matrix to easily assess the level of threat for the risk using the impact and probability combinations. The values in the risk matrix are vital to categorize the risk level with relative accuracy and take appropriate actions. Learn more
Risk details: Access the risk details page to view and update the risk owner, risk category, impacted projects, status of the risk, and inherent impact and probability. Based on the available risk matrix, the values of inherent risk class is populated. Based on the progress of work on the risk and the values assigned in the risk matrix, the values in the residual impact, probability, class, and tolerance are also populated.
Mitigation controls: Record and track mitigation efforts that are used to reduce the impact of a risk or dilute the severity of a risk. The methods used, tools relied on, or the steps taken to control the impact of the risk are called mitigation controls.
You can add or associate multiple work items that can be part of the mitigation control plan.
Verification: Set up a review process for your risk mitigation process. This provides a review system that helps oversee the implementation of the risk mitigation steps. A reviewer must verify the measures taken and approve them.
Evaluation: Evaluate the results of the mitigation control steps implemented following verification. At this stage, the residual impact and probability of the risk following the mitigation control measures are declared along with the tolerance level. Once the evaluation with the residual impact and probability is added, the residual risk class is generated based on the available risk matrix. This evaluation is submitted for approval to an approver who is to approve that the assessed residual risk class and tolerance level are justified after the implementation of the mitigation controls.
Components of opportunity management
Opportunity register: Record the opportunities identified in your business with details of the category of opportunity, impact level, and the probability of the opportunity producing favorable results. View the added opportunities in the register.
Dashboard: View the opportunity dashboard to get insights on the count of opportunities, the completion percentage of the actions taken to accomplish them, the status of progress across categories, the opportunities in each of the class, user engagement, and so on.
Opportunity matrix: Maintain an opportunity matrix to easily assess the possibility of converting the opportunity into gainful organizational or business goal using the impact and probability combinations. The values in the matrix are vital to categorize the opportunity level with relative accuracy and take appropriate actions. Learn more
Opportunity details: Access the opportunity details page to view and update the owner, category, impacted projects, status of the opportunity, and inherent impact and probability. Based on the available opportunity matrix, the values of the inherent class are populated. Based on the progress of work on the opportunity and the values assigned in the matrix, the values in the residual impact, probability, class, and reachability are also populated.
Action Plans: Record and track action plans that are used to maximize the impact of an opportunity or increase the chances of benefiting from the opportunity. The methods used, tools relied on, or the steps taken to enhance the reach of the opportunity are called action plans.
You can add or associate multiple work items that can be part of the action plan and propel the measures taken up to acquire the opportunity.
Verification: Set up a review process to asses your action plans. This provides a review system that helps oversee the implementation of the action plan. A reviewer must verify the measures taken and approve them.
Evaluation: Evaluate the results of the steps implemented following verification of the action plan. At this stage, the residual impact and probability of the opportunity being accomplished are declared along with the level of reach. Once the evaluation with the residual impact and probability is added, the residual opportunity class is generated based on the available matrix. This evaluation is submitted for approval to an approver who is to approve that the assessed residual opportunity class and reach level are justified after the implementation of the action plans.
Example of risk management
Let's assume your organization caters to the banking vertical and you develop and support custom mobile apps for your banking customers. The mobile app for this vertical needs to be developed and maintained with absolute caution in order to meet legal and ethical standards.
A proper risk management system, like the one in Zoho Sprints, can assist the team to identify potential threats, categorize them, grade them, create mitigation plan, execute them and assess how the threat has downgraded following mitigation efforts.
Let's say that the mobile app includes support for a new API call that helps fetch customers' identification card details from a safe repository which also contains other personally identifiable data. A new security threat is reported in another similar app where the customers' data were exposed due to weak API security. To avoid similar risks, you can record this risk in the risk register and start analyzing your application for probable threats. Classify the impact level and likelihood of occurrence based on your risk matrix values. The initial risk class will be populated based on the inherent impact and probability.
After recording the risk, add mitigation controls that help avert the risk. Verify those control measures to ensure they reduce the probability of the risk. Track these control measures as work items. Once the measures are implemented, evaluate the effects of those measures to assess if the impact of such a risk is brought to a tolerable level.
Through this cycle of risk management, you can avert business losses, damage to an organization's reputation, legal disputes, and wastage of human and financial resources.
Example of opportunity management
Let's assume you are an online learning platform that builds custom online courses for educational institutions. Your audience are the students enrolled in those institutions, but your business solutions are targeted at the institutions.
To expand the scope of your business, you need to identify opportunities and widen your user base. Apart from developing courses for the institutions, you find opportunities where you can directly present your courses to the students. In order to understand the viability of this new business goal, analyze the probability of it translating into an actionable endeavor, and evaluate its resulting impact, you can employ the opportunity management system in Zoho Sprints.
Record the new opportunity in the register with the details of the inherent impact and the inherent probability of it resulting in the expected outcome. Track the steps to accomplish it as action plans and associate work items with the action plans. Use the inbuilt review mechanism to verify the steps before implementation. Evaluate the results of the implementation to assess if those actions have helped you get closer to reaching the intended goal.
Repeat this process until the "within reach" threshold for the opportunity is smaller and the opportunity is successfully assimilated into your business.
Access your files securely from anywhere
Zoho CRM Training Programs
Learn how to use the best tools for sales force automation and better customer engagement from Zoho's implementation specialists.
Zoho DataPrep Personalized Demo
If you'd like a personalized walk-through of our data preparation tool, please request a demo and we'll be happy to show you how to get the best out of Zoho DataPrep.
- Zoho Workerly Home
- Forums
- Connect With Us:
- Zoho Recruit Home
- Forums
- Connect With Us:
Centralize Knowledge. Transform Learning.
All-in-one knowledge management and training platform for your employees and customers.
New to Zoho Writer?
Create. Review. Publish.
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
You are currently viewing the help pages of Qntrl’s earlier version. Click here to view our latest version—Qntrl 3.0's help articles.
New to Zoho Survey?
Zoho Sheet Resources
Zoho Forms Resources
New to Zoho Sign?
Zoho Sign Resources
Sign, Paperless!
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
Zoho TeamInbox Resources
New to Zoho ZeptoMail?
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
New to Zoho Workerly?
New to Zoho Recruit?
New to Zoho CRM?
New to Zoho Projects?
New to Zoho Sprints?
New to Zoho Assist?
New to Bigin?
Related Articles
Manage status and category for risks and opportunities
Like many other entities, risks and opportunities are tracked for progress through different status and they can be grouped into different categories for better management. Default status The default statuses include: To do, In progress, and Done. ...Risk and opportunity dashboard
Dashboards are an integral part of Zoho Sprints. They help provide a birds-eye view of the overall completion of work, track progress through multiple indicators, and identify problem areas using the insight from the available data. View risk and ...Add and manage opportunities
Add prospective opportunities to the opportunity register to track them and take adequate measure to improve the chances of realizing them for business gains. Learn more Add opportunity To add opportunity: Login to your Zoho Sprints workspace. Select ...Risk and opportunity matrix
A risk matrix or a risk assessment matrix is a visually comprehensible grid or table that helps categorize risks based on the level of impact or the severity of the consequences and the probability or the likelihood of the risk appearing. Similarly, ...Data Encryption in Zoho Sprints
Encryption is primarily used to safeguard the content of a message so that only the intended recipients can read it. This is done by replacing the content with unrecognizable data, which can be understood only by the intended recipient. Encryption ...
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources