| Course | BU 396 Managing Project Risks |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Risk identification workshop output |
| Length | About 760 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | BS in Project Management |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for BU 396 Unit 2
Thirty-One Raw Entries, Fourteen Survivors: The Record of a Risk Identification Workshop for a Composite Riverfront Festival, Before and After Cleaning
Student Name
Business, Herzing University
BU 396: Managing Project Risks
Instructor Name
February 4, 2026
Thirty-One Raw Entries, Fourteen Survivors: The Record of a Risk Identification Workshop for a Composite Riverfront Festival, Before and After Cleaning
The Session
This is the record of the risk identification workshop for the Cedar Bend Riverfest, the invented summer festival whose risk plan the board approved in Unit 1. The session was held on February 2, 2026, in the Partnership's conference room and ran for two hours. Nine people attended: the events director, who is the project manager; the operations lead, who facilitated; the vendor coordinator; the volunteer coordinator; the stage and production manager; the Partnership's finance manager; the city's special events liaison; a police lieutenant responsible for event security; and a representative of the largest sponsor. The composition matters. A session of only festival staff would have missed the city's permit timelines and the police view of crowd flow, and the sponsor's presence surfaced a funding risk staff might have been reluctant to raise.
Three prompts were used in order. First, the six categories from the plan were read out one at a time, and attendees called out anything that came to mind. Second, the group ran a premortem: the facilitator asked everyone to imagine it was August 24 and the festival had been a failure, and to write down why. Klein (2007) proposed the premortem because people find it easier to explain an imagined failure than to predict an uncertain one, and it tends to bring out concerns attendees would not otherwise voice. Third, attendees were asked what had gone wrong at the Partnership's previous events.
The Raw Capture
The session produced 31 entries, recorded below exactly as said, duplicates and vague entries included, grouped by the prompt that produced them.
Category prompt: bad weather; storms on Saturday night; river flooding; heat; permit not approved in time; alcohol license; not enough volunteers; volunteers not showing up on Sunday; headliner cancels; sound company problems; vendors cancel last minute; food vendor health inspection fails; not enough portable toilets; generator fails; fights; lost children; medical emergencies in the heat; sponsor pulls out; ticket sales slow; budget overrun.
Premortem prompt: it rained and nobody came; the headliner never showed; a vendor made people sick; the power went out during the main set; the police shut it down; we ran out of money in July; the city changed the road closure plan.
Past events prompt: the tent blew down in 2023; parking overflowed into the neighborhood; volunteers quit halfway through the day; the credit card readers failed.
The Cleaning Pass
The cleaning pass merged duplicates, dropped entries that were not risks and set aside vague entries until they could be stated precisely. Bad weather, storms on Saturday night, it rained and nobody came, and the tent blew down were merged into two entries, one for severe weather forcing a shutdown and one for high wind damaging structures. Headliner cancels and the headliner never showed were merged. Sponsor pulls out and we ran out of money in July were merged into a sponsorship shortfall. Budget overrun was dropped as an outcome rather than a risk; the risks that could cause it were already listed. Fights and the police shut it down were combined into a crowd disorder entry. Ticket sales slow was set aside and then kept as a separate revenue risk. The city changed the road closure plan was kept, because the city liaison confirmed the plan is not final until June.
After merging, 14 entries survived. Each is rewritten below in the fixed form the plan requires: a condition that exists now, an uncertain event and its consequence.
The Survivors
The table lists the 14 surviving entries with their category and a temporary identifier. Ratings are not assigned here; scoring is the next unit's work.
| ID | Category | Condition, uncertain event and consequence |
|---|---|---|
| R01 | Weather | Because the festival is outdoors in late August, severe thunderstorms could force the park to be cleared, cutting a program day short and triggering refunds |
| R02 | Weather | Because stages and tents are temporary, high winds could damage structures and injure people |
| R03 | Weather | Because late August can bring heat indexes above 100 degrees, attendees could suffer heat illness, overloading first aid |
| R04 | Weather | Because the park sits on the river floodplain, a high river stage could close part of the site |
| R05 | Permits | Because the special event permit requires city council approval in May, a delay could compress vendor and stage contracting |
| R06 | Permits | Because the road closure plan is not final until June, a change could force a site layout redesign |
| R07 | People | Because volunteer sign-ups lag in summer, too few volunteers could leave gates and recycling stations understaffed |
| R08 | People | Because the headliner's contract allows cancellation for illness, a cancellation could cut Saturday attendance |
| R09 | Vendors | Because vendors book several events, more than five cancellations could leave gaps in the food court and lost fees |
| R10 | Vendors | Because food is prepared on site in heat, a food safety failure could cause illness and a health department closure |
| R11 | Safety | Because crowds peak during the headliner, crowd disorder could require police intervention and early closure |
| R12 | Safety | Because the site depends on rented generators, a power failure could stop a stage and cut lighting at night |
| R13 | Finance | Because three sponsorships are verbal, a sponsor withdrawing could leave a funding gap |
| R14 | Finance | Because advance ticket sales drive vendor confidence, slow sales could force budget cuts in July |
What the Session Did Not Produce
Two things are missing, and the record says so. The session produced no opportunities, even though the plan calls for them; the facilitator will ask the core team to identify at least two before scoring. And the credit card reader failure from past events was set aside as an operational problem the vendor coordinator is already fixing with a new payment provider, not an uncertain event. Hillson (2002) observed that identification sessions focused on threats rarely surface opportunities unless asked directly, which is what happened here. Kendrick (2015) recommends revisiting identification as the project progresses rather than treating one session as complete, and the register will remain open to new entries. The Cedar Bend Riverfest and everyone named by role are composites created for this course.
References
Hillson, D. (2002). Extending the risk process to manage opportunities. International Journal of Project Management, 20(3), 235-240. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(01)00074-6
Kendrick, T. (2015). Identifying and managing project risk: Essential tools for failure-proofing your project (3rd ed.). AMACOM.
Klein, G. (2007). Performing a project premortem. Harvard Business Review, 85(9), 18-19.
What the BU 396 Unit 2 instructions ask for
The Unit 2 assignment asks students to run or simulate a risk identification session and report its output. Most versions want the participants and their roles described, the techniques or prompts used named, the raw list of risks recorded before editing, a cleaning step that merges and removes entries with reasons and a final list of risks written in a structured form. Many rubrics specify the cause, event and effect format for each surviving risk. Instructors look for evidence of a real process rather than a polished list written alone. A simulated session is often acceptable if it is described honestly and the participants are plausible roles for the project. Expect a few pages with a table of survivors, citing sources on identification techniques in APA 7, and keep the raw capture visible so the cleaning can be judged.
Inside the BU 396 Unit 2 example
The sample opens by describing the session: date, length, the nine attendees and why their roles mattered, including the city liaison and a police lieutenant. It explains the three prompts used in order: the plan's categories, a premortem and lessons from past events. The raw capture lists all 31 entries grouped by prompt, exactly as said. The cleaning pass explains each merge and each drop, such as combining four weather comments into two entries. A table then presents 14 survivors in the three-part form with categories and temporary identifiers, leaving ratings for the next unit. A final section notes two gaps, the lack of opportunities and one entry set aside, and explains how each will be handled before scoring begins.
BU 396 Unit 2 rubric: what full points look like
The rubric for the workshop output typically assesses the description of the session, the techniques used, the transparency of the cleaning and the quality of the final risk statements. Session description earns full points when participants, roles and duration are clear and the reasons for including each role are given. Techniques are judged by named prompts suited to the project, used in a sensible order. Transparency rewards a visible raw list and a cleaning pass that explains each change, as the sample's does, rather than a list that appears already polished. Risk statements score highest when each follows a consistent cause, event and effect format and describes something uncertain rather than a certainty. Instructors also credit honest notes about what the session missed. Organization and citations complete the grade, and a table of survivors makes the output easy to score in the next unit.
BU 396 Unit 2 help: mistakes that cost points
A frequent Unit 2 mistake is presenting only a clean final list, which hides the process the unit is meant to show. Another is writing risks as single words, such as weather or budget, that no one can rate or act on. Students often include issues that have already happened or outcomes like cost overruns as if they were risks. Some records list participants without saying why their roles matter. Others use only one prompt and miss whole categories of risk. Finally, look for opportunities; identification sessions naturally focus on threats, and noting that none emerged, as the sample does, shows you understand the full scope of risk management and know to ask for upside risks directly.
Get a BU 396 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 2 instructions and your BU 396 rubric, along with the project case and any category list your section supplies. We write a custom example that records the room, works the prompts as separate passes, keeps the raw capture beside the cleaned list and states every survivor as condition, event and consequence. First custom sample free, returned in 24 to 48 hours.
More BU 396 papers and project management samples
- BU 396 Unit 1: Risk management planning
- BU 396 Unit 3: Qualitative analysis and scoring
- BU 396 Unit 4: Quantitative analysis
- BU 396 Unit 5: Response strategy selection
- BU 396 Unit 6: Risk register
- BU 396 Unit 7: Monitoring and review plan
- BU 396 Unit 8: Risk report to sponsor
- BU 345 Unit 2: Charter and stakeholder register
- BU 433 Unit 2: User stories with acceptance criteria
- BU 434 Unit 2: Elicitation plan
- BU 436 Unit 2: Communication and handoff plan
BU 396 Unit 2 questions, answered
How many risks should the session produce?
More than the register will keep. A first pass running to thirty or forty entries is normal and healthy, because the merging and dropping that follow are half the deliverable and need something to work on. Where the instructions set a final count, produce the long list first, then show the reduction down to that number with the reasoning attached rather than stopping early and pretending.
Do I have to hold an actual session?
Check what your instructions require, since some sections want a simulated session and others expect a real conversation with classmates. Where the session is constructed, say so plainly and write the roles as positions rather than as people. What fails is describing an event with attendees, timings and quoted contributions that never took place, then presenting it as something recorded.
What separates a risk from an issue?
Whether it has happened yet. A supplier that might miss a date is a risk carrying a probability; a supplier that has already missed one is an issue and gets managed differently. Entries written in the present tense are usually issues in disguise, and a register holding them will score responses against events that no longer need a probability at all.
Where can I find a free BU 396 Unit 2 sample paper?
The complete BU 396 Unit 2 workshop record, raw capture and survivor table included, is free to read above. For a record built around your own project, send the prompt with a short description of the work, and a free custom workshop output will be drafted, commonly within 48 hours.
Do I have to hold an actual session for BU 396 Unit 2?
Many instructors accept a simulated session if it is described honestly. The sample reads as a real meeting record, with roles, prompts and raw comments, because that is what the unit asks you to demonstrate. Check your instructions and say plainly if the session is simulated.