As you will appreciate from Block $4$ Part $2,$ all project activities are subject to risks. The requirements change, equipment fails, and people become ill or unavailable. So what are the possible events that could delay your completion of the EMA? The list below offers some examples.

Do you understand the requirements of the EMA well enough to enable you to meet your schedule dates?

Will you need to do some further research, or revision, before you can get going?

Are any external, potentially disruptive events due to take place during the project period $($e$.$g$.$ moving house, changing job$)?$

Are you studying other modules with overlapping submission dates?

Be careful when choosing your risks. For example, a planned holiday would not normally be considered a risk because the dates and consequences are well known in advance, and should be reflected in your schedule. Similarly, an assignment for another module is not a risk; however, an unforeseen delay in completing the assignment would be$.$

Once you have identified the events, you need to assess the $$likelihood$$ of their occurrence and the $$impact$$ they could have on your work, using ratings of $$low$,$medium$$ or $$high$.$ You must then calculate the overall level of each risk for each event as $$low$,$medium$$ or $$high$$ and provide a mitigation strategy.

You should present your findings in tabular form, as illustrated by the example below.

Table $1$ Example table for a risk assessment

Event Likelihood Impact Risk Mitigation

$[...]$

The goal of this part of the work plan is to encourage you to think ahead and plan around knowable and unforeseen events that could prevent completion of your EMA. We are not looking for elaborate schemes, just simple ideas to demonstrate that you have thought about the potential problems and have some ideas for resolving them.

Marks will be awarded to any genuine attempt at a risk assessment that reflects the work to be undertaken. No assumptions have been made as to what constitutes a $$correct$$ set of risks, or what their likelihood and impact will be$.$

There is no word limit for the work plan, as it is envisaged that it will comprise a simple table of activities and deadlines, together with a table of risks and mitigation strategies.