这是使专业人士挠头的概念之一。我本人是它的受害者。在我最初的日子PMP exam preparation, I had difficulty understanding the difference between the contingency plan and the fallback plan.
我曾经认为应急计划被用于管理已确定的风险,而后备计划是出于身份不明的风险。这是错误的。应急和后备计划有助于管理确定的风险。
However, since both plans are used to manage risks, you may wonder which you should follow if any identified risk occurs as both deals with identified risks?
Since I have passed the PMP and PMI-RMP exams and understand these concepts well, I am writing this blog post and hope after reading it you will be able to differentiate the contingency and fallback plan.
Contingency Plan
Merriam-Webster defines the term “contingency” as “an event that may but is not certain to occur.”
A contingency is an event that may or may not occur. Therefore, we can say that the contingency plan deals with events that may or may not occur.
A contingency plan is a part of the project management plan; it describes every action that you will take if any identified risk occurs.
Let us look at a real-world example of a contingency plan.
一个现实世界的示例
您正在进行一个建设项目,并且有可能在执行过程中降雨可能会降低,这会损害公开露面的任何消耗品。
Therefore, you make a plan that says, “If there is an indication of rainfall, all consumables will be covered with a plastic sheet.” You further add that after the rain stops, you will bring a fan/vacuum pump to clean and dry the wet consumables.
这是此风险事件的应急计划。
You can find many definitions of a contingency plan on the internet that may appear different to you, but they may be individually correct.
Below are two different explanations of the contingency plan.
- Contingency plans are the plans that describe the specific actions that will be taken if an opportunity or a threat occurs.
- A contingency response strategy will be executed if there is a sufficient warning sign (risk trigger).
如果您检查这些定义,您会发现它们没有什么不同,只是以不同的方式措辞。
后备计划
The fallback plan is a part of the project management plan and defines under which circumstances action has to be taken.
A fallback plan is implemented when the contingency plan fails or is not fully effective. It is a backup for the contingency plan. You can say that the fallback plan is generally made for residual risks.
一个现实世界的示例
Let’s reconsider the example given above.
Suppose the rain continued to fall for a very long time, longer than expected, which causes damage to the consumables.
In this case, you will implement your fallback plan. It says that if the rain continues to fall for a very long time, causing consumables to be damaged and the contingency plan fails, you will reorder consumables from a pre-identified supplier.
This is an example of a fallback plan.
在进一步之前,让我根据自己的经验分享另一个例子。
I am using a third-party backup service to save data for my blog. I can use this backup in case my site crashes and myhosting providerdoes not have any backup.
This is my contingency plan.
Now, what would happen if my site got hacked, and at the same time my third-party backup service also went out of business? How would I restore my blog?
This is where my fallback plan comes into play. To save myself from such a disaster, I always keep an updated copy of my blog on my computer and Google Drive.
Now, if my blog is hacked and even the third party service fails, I can restore my blog from my backup stored on my computer or online storage.
应急计划和后备计划之间的区别
There is no difference between the contingency plan and the fallback plan; they complement each other. The fallback plan only comes into use when the contingency plan fails.
应急计划与后备计划之间的相似之处
b的相似性etween these two plans are as follows:
- Both plans are known as risk responses.
- Both plans are used to manage the identified risks.
- Both plans utilize the contingency reserve for implementation.
概括
The contingency and fallback plans are the backbone of yourrisk management plan这可以帮助您管理确定的风险。如果发生任何已确定的风险,您将实施应急计划,并且当应急计划失败或看起来无效时,您将实施后备计划。
You will use the contingency reserve to apply the contingency or fallback plan, not the management reserve because the contingency reserve is used for identified risks. The management reserve is used to manage unidentified risks.
I hope that now you understand these terms. However, if you still have some trouble, leave a comment below. I am ready to discuss.
The contingency plan and fallback plan are very important from a PMP and PMI-RMP exam point of view, so be sure to understand this topic well.
a project manager discover that a project problem has occurred.the problem was never discussed during risk planning activities or added to the risk register and it will now cost the project money .what will be an appropriate response for this situation?
Since this risk was not identified, the project manager will manage it through a workaround.
I’m not sure about the PMBOK terminology, but this is my take on risk response planning, from a logical perspective.
一旦确定了您(和您的团队)的所有风险:
1.If you can reconfigure the project tasks in such a way to eliminate the risk by achieving the task objective in a different way, without negatively impacting schedule, budget, scope, or quality, you can make that change and AVOID the risk.
2.如果您可以将这项风险任务外包给另一个组织,转移对他们的风险责任,则可以转移风险。
3.如果您可以通过这种方式来增加项目计划,以减少风险的概率或影响到更可接受的水平,那么您可以减轻风险。在这种情况下,您将制定和实施缓解计划,该计划成为基线项目的一部分,并主动接受该项目的相关成本和预算影响。您致力于为此付出代价。
4. If the proactive changes are not feasible (cost or schedule impact is too high to accept as is), you can develop a CONTINGENCY PLAN which will be implemented only if the trigger event occurs. This contingency plan becomes part of the approved project baseline, and associated budget is placed in the CONTINGENCY RESERVE. You ACCEPT the risk, but you may not have to pay for it if the trigger event never occurs. You might also create contingency plans for secondary or residual risks which could occur in the event of failure of the primary contingency plans, and allocate additional budget to the contingency reserve in case their trigger events also occur. These secondary contingency plans could be thought of as FALLBACK PLANS.
您批准的项目基线允许上述所有内容,您在这里所做的任何事情通常都不需要更改范围或额外批准。这涵盖了所有已知的知名人士和已知的知名者。
Now if something else occurs that you didn’t anticipate, it can be placed in one of the remaining two categories:
1.一个UNKNOWN-KNOWN是你应该have been able to identify WOULD occur in your project, but somehow you did not include this in your plan. This would generally be considered a planning error, since a skilled project manager would have realized that it must be included in the project plan.
2.一个未知的未知是可能的职业r during the project execution, but that you had no reasonable expectation to identify as a risk. If it occurs, it would be difficult to place blame on the project plan, and instead most would consider this an unfortunate unforeseen circumstance.
To limit the impact on the project, you have to be REACTIVE and implement a WORKAROUND, requesting approval for a scope change that would then be drawn from the MANAGEMENT RESERVE. You might also use the management reserve to react to low-risk events that had been previously identified but intentionally kept on the watch list.
As I said, I’m not sure how well this matches up with PMBOK-speak, but I find it to be a very logical framework for dealing with real project management situations.
知名人士被确定为您必须制定应急计划的风险。
The Unknown- Known, and Unknown-Unknown shall be managed through the workaround.
You are welcome Fahad. I have a quick question. Do we need to open a Change Request if we want to invoke the Contigency Reserve? (I know we need it for Management Reserve).
Also, If we need to implement the work around because something unforeseen occurred and we did not have any response strategy against it – OR – our plan B failed as well – do we need to invoke the CR? I think answer to this is “yes”, but need to confirm. What are your thoughts in these 2 scenarios? Thanks.
In first case, you will not raise the change request. You are going to use the contingency reserve, and no change request is required for it as there is no change in any baselines, scope or project plan.
In second case, ideally if any unforeseen incident occurs, you should use the management reserve.
Thanks.
I disagree on the first point. CR should be initiated because there will be a change in the cost baseline once the contingency reserve will get used. We might have to add more contingency fund for further risks / keep it as it is. nevertheless CR analysis has to be performed.
With due respect.. contingency reserve is already calculated and part of cost/ schedule baseline.. so it won’t change
Do i need to issue a change request to utilise Contingency reseres?
使用应急储备以反映成本基线的更新后,我是否需要发出更改请求?
我需要发布更改请求以实施应急计划吗?
1) No
2) No
3) No
Hi Fahad,
您可以根据项目宪章中的风险进行3点估算(时间和成本),因此您可能会发现一些额外的风险。
这些风险以及项目启动期间确定的风险涉及风险管理。
During risk management you prepare risk response but, some residual risk remains even after risk response planning.
现在我的问题是,我们将应急储备保留为“弥补我们创建的风险响应的成本”或“剩余的剩余风险响应响应响应计划”或两者的“剩余剩余风险”。
问候,
鞋子。
You will analyse the residual risk. If it requires further planning, you will go for it, other wise just keep in watch list for future monitoring.
There are some low priority risks which are pushed into risk register as watchlist. when these risks occur what reserve will be used ? contingency or management reserve?
根据PMBOK第五版页面:332,
“Threats found in low-risk zone may not require proactive management action beyond being placed in the risk register as a part of watch list or adding a contingency reserve”.
In your risk management/response plan, you have to decide that how you are going to manage the low priority risks. If you don’t keep contingency reserve, you will have to use the management reserve.
But I dont agree with you. We are reading in the PMBOK about Accept strategy: “This strategy can be either passive or active. Passive acceptance requires no action except to document the strategy, leaving the project team to deal with the risks as they occur. The most common active acceptance strategy is to establish a contingency reserve, including amounts of time, money, or resources to handle the risks.”
So, Please put “chemical” in the situation of question in the place of “resource” in the above paragraph. The project manager buys 15% extra resource to handle the risk. He wants to have it as a reserve and IF some chemical were lost this 15? will be used. It is a proactive acceptance.
In this meaning that you said all strategies except passive accept will be “mitigate” because they are decreasing potential negative impact or probability of risk.
do you agree?
In accept strategy (active) you don’t do anything to reduce the probability of risks. You don’t take any action unless the risk occurs, though you assign a contingency resource for it.
如果发生,您可以处理它。
While in mitigation, you try to reduce the probability of happening of risks.
After reading this article bit confused between Risk response and Contingency plan. Both look same to me now, but is it really same or any difference? Please let me know if contingency plan is more or less same as RIsk response.
Kindly clarify.
应急计划是一个风险响应计划。当发生风险时,您将实现应变计划。如果应急计划失败,您将实施后备计划。后备计划也是一项风险响应计划,但在应急计划失败时会实施。这种情况和后备计划 - 两者都是风险响应计划。希望可以清除您的疑问。