The Special Challenge of Unthinkable Risk
Some of the risks confronting a project may be fatal. By this, we mean fatal to the hopes and aspirations of those who engendered the project in the first place. These risks are the most essential to manage, but managing them sensibly may bring you into conflict with established cultural norms. Your project may have been placed on a fixed schedule by the CEO’s public announcement—carried in all the press—that the product would be delivered on a certain date. By going very public with the date, the CEO has attempted to make schedule slip unthinkable.
Declaring an unwanted outcome unthinkable does not make it impossible, as we all know. But it may make risk management nearly impossible. Consider the example in the very next chapter. ...