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Risk and issues workflow documentation?

  • 1.  Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Dec 23, 2014 04:49 AM


    Hi

    Does anyone know if there's documentation on the risk and issue management workflows in Clarity? E.g.

    - what do the different stati mean (Open, Work in Progress, In Assessment, Resolved, ...)?

    - which stati are for information only, which trigger a workflow (e.g. "Closed" triggers a closure approval workflow)?

    - which workflows exist (so far I identified an Ownership Acceptance, a Closing Acceptance, an Escalation Acceptance and a Project Transfer workflow), is this correct, are there others?

    - how do these workflows work (who gets an action)?

    - what does that checkbox "Cancel Workflow" do?

     

    Thanks for any hints.



  • 2.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Dec 23, 2014 05:09 AM


  • 3.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?



  • 4.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Dec 23, 2014 07:17 AM

    Thanks for your response. However, here's what the PM Guide says about the risk workflow: "You can use processes to automate certain elements of the risk management process. Before you begin creating and maintaining risk management processes, be sure that you understand the process and how it works". - Unfortunately not very helpful. :-(

     

    There must be some better documentation out there...



  • 5.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jan 06, 2015 05:18 PM

    Hi Martin,

    The documentation on the Project Management guide has a great explanation of the 'manual' workflow of how the functionality is designed for managing Risks, Issues and Change Requests.  It clearly shows you how to create a Risk, and then to create an issue and close the risk, and so forth. The statement about 'using processes to automate' the workflow is something that you can build around the manual process.  Once you have reviewed the documentation and see how to manage the 'manual' workflow of data, you can then get an idea of how you might use a BPM process workflow definition to 'automate' some steps in the functionality.

    Here is a screenshot of the topics in the documentation.  I would suggest using this to guide you in your TEST environment to setup and manage these records.

    Also, our Services Team may be helpful in working with you to understand your business needs and help you to develop a BPM process definition that will be an optimal solution.



  • 6.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 07, 2015 03:30 AM

    Hi Kathryn

    Thank you for the explanation. I had reviewed that documentation but it did not say anything about the workflows. So let me give some examples and backgrounds. The issue we have is that users think that risks and issues are just lists they can maintain, but that is not the case. When they enter a risk and assign an owner, that risk is locked until the owner has accepted it. We were not aware of that and it is also not documented. Users don't like that because e.g. they might have assigned a risk to a senior manager who herself never touches Clarity, so that risk will be locked forever and cannot be closed (unless they reassign it to a "friendly user" who will accept it). Also, once closed the risk will only disappear from the list when someone (the creator? the project manager?) has accepted closure. I found this out by coincidence when I closed a risk I had created for testing but it was still on the list. Also there are 12 options for risk status, some of them seem to trigger a workflow (e.g. "Closed"). And who are the roles involved, e.g. I understand that the risk owner has to accept risk ownership, but who has to accept risk closure?

     

    It would be great if these processes would be described somewhere, but so far I have not found anything.

    Clarity Risk Status.png



  • 7.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 07, 2015 04:00 AM
      |   view attached

    I checked the Assign Risks process and attached is the Process Flow Diagram

     

    Before activating the process,  it would be good to understand the process flow. You can take a look at the steps to better understand as to who is being notified, or, to whom the action item is being sent.

    NJ



  • 8.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 07, 2015 04:03 AM
      |   view attached

    The below mentioned pretty much explains (at a higher-level) how you can manage risks -

     

    Manage Project Risks

     

    A risk management process includes identifying, analyzing,
    planning, tracking, and communicating risk. Risk management involves risks,
    issues, and change requests. Making informed decisions by consciously assessing
    potential problems and the severity of their impact is the heart of project risk
    management.

     

    The project manager creates a risk or an issue based on the
    impact of the risk after identifying and analyzing the risk.

     

    You can identify risks at any time during a project life
    cycle. You can escalate a risk to an issue when it appears likely to affect the
    project in a significant way. Change requests result from issues and can help
    facilitate effective resolutions.

     

    The following diagram and this scenario, describe one way of
    managing project risks.


    In this example, the project team at Forward Inc. is
    developing a new product using a niche technology. The resources within the
    organization having experience with this technology are limited and so the team
    must use external resources to complete the project. Additionally, the product
    is bundled with third-party APIs for which legal approvals are required.

     

    The team identifies two risks affecting their project in a
    significant way for analysis:

     

     

    • A limited number of resources with the required experience
    • Dependency on the approval process

     

    After the analysis, based on the impact of the risk on the
    project, the project manager creates a risk for the limited resources and an
    issue for the dependency.

    To manage project risks, perform these steps:

     

    1. Review the
      Prerequisites
      .
    2. Analyze Risk.

     

     

    NJ



  • 9.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 07, 2015 04:06 AM

    If anything, apart from the above mentioned, is required to be put down in detail, then you would need to create a customized process.

     

    NJ



  • 10.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 07, 2015 04:07 AM

    And I agree with -"It would be great if these processes would be described somewhere" ... can be dealt a bit better

     

    NJ



  • 11.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 07, 2015 04:22 AM

    Wow, that is very useful, thank you very much. Can you elaborate a bit on the automatic workflows? I.e. which change of status triggers what workflow? E.g. we found out that the initial creation of a risk and assignment to an owner triggers an action for the owner to accept/reject the risk. Until the workflow is completed the risk is locked. Or, if the status is changed to "Closed" then an action is created for someone (not sure if it is the creator or the project manager) to approve this closure.



  • 12.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 07, 2015 04:59 AM

    "Can you elaborate a bit on the automatic workflows? I.e. which change of status triggers what workflow? E.g. we found out that the initial creation of a risk and assignment to an owner triggers an action for the owner to accept/reject the risk. Until the workflow is completed the risk is locked. Or, if the status is changed to "Closed" then an action is created for someone (not sure if it is the creator or the project manager) to approve this closure."

     

    Need to check on this. This is what can be done -

    1. Check the steps of the process (Assign Risks) from Administration > Processes

    2. Create 3 test users - One will act as PM, one as the Owner and one to whom the risk would be assigned (the Assignee)

    3. Assuming that the process (in 1 is validated  and activated), create the risk using the Owner and assign it to the Assignee

     

    Check the process flow by changing the status of the risk / risk response, etc.

     

    As per the Project Management User Guide -

    Review the Prerequisites

     

    To complete all tasks in this scenario, you need the following access rights:

    • Project - Risk, Issue, Change Request -
      Create/Edit
    • Project - Risk, Issue, Change Request -
      Delete
    • Project - Risk, Issue, Change Request -
      Delete - All
    • Project - Risk, Issue, Change Request -
      Edit - All
    • Project - Risk, Issue, Change Request -
      View
    • Project - Risk, Issue, Change Request -
      View - All

     

     

    It will take a while for me to do the above

     

    NJ



  • 13.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 09, 2015 04:23 AM

    Were you able to get it to work ? Any finding(s) you can share would be great

     

    Have a nice weekend

     

    NJ



  • 14.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 17, 2015 10:45 AM

    I don't have the "Administration" item in my navigation since I am not an admin, just a user. But your reply got me on the right path: the steps of a process are visible in the tabs "Process" for many items, e.g. for risks and issues, but also for CRs etc. So what we are going to do is just trigger each process (e.g. change a risk to every status available) and then see what happens. So we will be able to identify what exactly happens.

     

    Thanks again, your hint was very useful!



  • 15.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Jan 19, 2015 12:37 AM

    You're welcome Martin

     

    Please mark the thread as resolved if that's the case

     

    NJ



  • 16.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Mar 03, 2015 12:11 PM

    We are slowly getting closer to the response. We found that there are pictures of those workflows in Clarity. So for example if I get an alert on a risk escalation, the page contains a link to a "Visibility Workflow Risk v3". BUT: if I click on the link I get an error message, the location of these pictures is blocked by the firewall.

     

    Could anyone with access to the sources be so kind and post these here?  Would be much appreciated!



  • 17.  Re: Risk and issues workflow documentation?

    Posted Mar 23, 2016 04:07 PM

    The following documentation describes the out-of-the-box Assign Risks process. You can customize this process as per your business needs and use it to manage your project risks.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Automate Risk Management

     

    The Assign Risks process is an out-of-the-box CA PPM risk management process. As a process administrator or manager, use the assign risks process to manage the assignment and resolution of project risks. By default, this process is not active. Your process administrator activates it before you can start the assign risks process. Once active, you can access and start the process from the risk under the Processes tab. You can customize the process using extra business rules. See Configure Processes for more information.

    The out-of-the-box Assign Risks process completes the following steps. The process sends notifications for each action item or step to designated assignees.

    1. A user creates a new project risk with an Open status and manually starts the Assign Risks process.
    2. The process checks if a risk category is specified. If a risk category is specified, creates an action item for the project manager to assign a risk owner. If a risk category is not specified, creates an action item for the project manager to enter a risk category. The risk owner changes the risk status to Work in Progress.
    3. Once a risk is assigned an owner, the process creates an action item for the risk owner to select an approach for risk resolution (mitigate, watch, transfer, or accept):
      • If the risk is accepted, creates an action item for the project manager to approve risk acceptance. If risk acceptance is approved, then marks the risk as Resolved. If risk acceptance is
        denied, action item goes back to the risk owner to select a new approach for risk resolution.
      • If risk is being watched, creates an action item for the risk owner to watch the risk. After the action is completed, the risk is marked as Resolved.
      • If the risk is being mitigated, creates an action item for the risk owner to define mitigation steps for the risk. After the action is completed, the risk is marked as Resolved.
      • If the risk is being transferred, creates an action item for the risk owner to transfer the risk to a different owner or group. After the action item is complete, the risk is marked as Resolved.
    4. After the risk is resolved, the risk owner changes the risk status to Closed.

    ----

    Let me know if you find this information helpful or if you have any feedback.

    Thanks and Regards,

    Sarmistha