Risk Management and FMEA for Product Development
by José Campos and Jean-Claude Balland

[Business/Project Management]

"If you are not managing risk, you are not managing your project." This is most applicable when it comes to managing risk in product development. Risk is the probability of something going wrong with your development project. Technology changes, customer requirements vary, schedules are always in flux, and your suppliers are in turmoil. In short, there are many things that can go wrong. What if you could predict what could go wrong? And more importantly, what if you could develop a plan to eliminate or mitigate your risks?

Risk Management is the ability to anticipate risks and develop plans to manage them; thus, creating more predictable schedules, improving reliability and customer satisfaction. In many cases, risk management prevents what otherwise might be a catastrophic failure of your development program.

This ebook was written by product developers with many years of experience in the "real world," where traditional text book approaches fail. We set about developing a how-to guide that understand the pressures placed on you, the need to get to the point quickly and to show you step-by-step how to apply risk management on product development projects.