EVALUATE, REFLECT AND CHANGE - Re-evaluate goals and risks

Our experience: we found conducting the goals and risks exercise really valuable to understanding how we all felt about the project and its aims. However, over time as the project evolved our goals and risks changed. Things which were once important became insignificant, and things that we saw as threats dissipated, while new risks and goals emerged. Therefore, we repeated the exercise regularly to reassess our priorities and to stay focused.

Why?

Obviously goals and risks change over time, therefore it’s important to revisit them once in a while to check how the team have progressed and whether any risks and fears have dissipated or been overcome.

This is fairly self-explanatory it just means going over what has been raised before and then repeating the goals and risks exercise in the Define and redefine section.

Bear in mind that some of the previous goals and risks may have been confidential. Now time has passed that may no longer be the case but you need to check with the individual that they’re happy for them to be circulated. Alternatively some goals and risks which were previously accessible to all may no longer be – so just check beforehand.

Exercise

We conducted such a re-evaluation exercise in the following way:

• The person responsible provides everyone with a copy of their previous goals and risks (individual and team ones)
• Let them decide if they are happy to be shared
• Discuss as a group those which are accessible and try to evaluate how you have moved on, achievements made and how things have been overcome
• Once everyone is happy with this – repeat the goals and risks exercise.