Tools & Techniques Flashcards
Active Listening
receiver confirms they are listening, rephrases what the speaker said, expresses agreement or disagreement, and asks for clarification if necessary
- manage communications
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Affinity Diagramming
- collect requirements: ideas gathered from other requirement gathering techniques are grouped by common scope area or requirements type – business needs, stakeholder requirements, solution requirements, transition requirements, project requirements, quality requirements, and/or technical requirements
- manage quality
Alternatives Analysis
comparing options given constraints
- monitor and control project work
- perform integrated change control
- plan scope management
- estimate activity durations: when estimated schedule does not fit constraints, determine how to make it fit based on choices
- estimate project costs
- manage quality
- estimate activity resources: if resources you want are not available, you might need to look at alternatives in order to avoid a project delay OR you might need to determine which resources are more cost-effective
- acquire resources
- control resources
- plan risk responses
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Alternatives Generation
sets of actions, strategies or portfolio of different individual elements that exhaust all possible approaches to a particular situation
- define scope: generate choices for vendors, materials, and systems
Analagous (Top-Down) Estimating
- uses expert judgement and historical information, such as similar completed projects, to predict the future
- pros
- faster
- cheaper
- activities do not need to be identified
- cons
- less accurate and reliable
- reflects a limited amount of information
- estimate is only as good as the data provided
- requires considerable experience
- does not take into account differences between current and past projects
- estimate activity durations
- estimate project costs
- estimate activity resources
Assumptions Analysis
identify and analyze assumptions made on the project and assess whether or not those assumptions are valid to identify risks
- identify risks: assumptions can become risks
- plan stakeholder engagement
Attribute Sampling
a form of statistical sampling that simply identifies whether or not there is a defect
- control quality
Audit
- validate scope
- manage quality: document best practices used, record variances, recommend best practices, implement best practices, document quality audit in lessons learned
- control quality: confirm that product conforms to requirements and is fit for use
- monitor risks: was money spent on implementing risk responses worth the cost?
- control procurements
Benchmarking
- collect requirements: compare product or project requirements to others in the industry
- plan quality: measuring one item against another and how does that most accurately and precisely deliver quality; can also compare projects for earned value management
- plan stakeholder engagement
Bidder Conferences
- conduct procurements
Bottom-Up Estimating
- estimate how long or how much each work package takes or costs;
- pros
- more accurate and most reliable form of estimating
- gains buy-in from team more easily
- cons
- takes time and money to use this technique
- team might have tendency to pad estimates unless they understand the concept of reserves
- requires that the project be very well-defined
- estimate activity durations
- estimate project costs: creates definitive estimate
- estimate activity resources
Brainstorming
- project charter: gather data
- identify stakeholders: key experts, known stakeholders, and team members to determine who has been left off the list
- develop project management plan
- gather requirements: build on each others’ ideas, particularly when there are people with different perspectives
- plan quality
- identify risks
- identify stakeholders
Brainwriting
question given in advance so participants have time to write out ideas
- identify stakeholders
Business Analysis
define, manage, and control requirements; PMs partner with business analysts to identify problems, define business needs, recommend viable solutions, elicit, document, and manage stakeholder requirements, and facilitate successful implementation
Cause-and-Effect Chart (Fishbone Diagram OR Ishikawa Diagram)
shows the relationship between variables within a process and how those causal factors might contribute to poor quality; confirm policies and procedures are being followed and metrics are being used correctly and are adequate to achieve acceptable quality; looks like a fishbone because the causes of the error are nodes coming off a straight line that leads to the effect (error)
- manage quality
- control quality
Checklists
ensures routine work is done the same way each time
- develop project management plan
- manage quality
Checksheets (Tally Sheets)
type of checklist that can be used to keep track of data, such as quality problems uncovered, and document the frequency with which a particular defect occurs; can be used to tally up errors in quality control
- control quality
- identify risks
Claims Administration
- during the procurement process, a claim is an assertion that the buyer did something that has hurt the seller and the seller is now asking for compensation
- seller initiated change requests
- claims are usually addressed through the contract change control system
- best way to settle them is through negotiation or specified dispute-resolution process in the contract
- can happen when contract is canceled
- control procurements
Communications Technology
- develop team
- plan communications management
- manage communications
Configuration Management System
part of the PMIS that contains the organization’s standard processes, procedures, forms, and reports for tracking and controlling project documentation; when scope changes, you need the configuration management system
- perform integrated change control
Conflict Management
collaboration is the ideal approach to conflict management, which means both parties reach agreement; should avoid using forcing, compromising, or withdrawing/avoiding styles of conflict management; might need to escalate the conflict if it’s outside of your authority; if the conflict is petty, you might use smoothing to downplay the issue
- develop team
- manage team
- manage communications
- manage stakeholder engagement
Constraint Analysis
determine the level of risk posed by schedule or budget limitations
Control Chart
line chart that plots specifications vs. actual quality; specifications are set by customer; usually used where there is a repititive process; there’s an upper control limit and lower control limit; the specifications show what is an acceptable level of variance; the greater the sigma, the fewer the errors there are
Cost Aggregation
working from bottom up, activity cost estimates are rolled up to work package cost estimates that are rolled up to control account costs and finally to project costs
- determine budget
Cost Benefit Analysis
compares expected cost of project against the potential benefits it could bring the organization that results in a decimal or ratio; greater than 1 means the benefits are greater than the cost
- monitor and control project work
- perform integrated change control
- plan quality
- control resource
- plan risk responses
Cost of Quality Analysis
cost of conformance versus cost of non-conformance
- estimate project costs
- plan quality: prevention, appraisal, and failure
- prevention: preventing errors by providing the right tools, safety procedures, processes, and training
- appraisal: time and money to audit and evaluate for quality; quality assurance
- failure: cost of non-conformance; internal failure—redoing work—external failure such as fines, loss of sales, and damaged reputation
Critical Path Method
determine the longest possible duration and where there is float in the schedule
- develop schedule
- control schedule: confirm activities on critical path are completed on the baseline; if not, make adjustments
Data Gathering
- develop project management plan
- manage quality
- identify risks
- perform qualitative risk analysis: interviews
- perform quantitative risk analysis
- plan risk responses
- plan procurement management
- identify stakeholders
- plan stakeholder engagement
Decision Tree Analysis
- models of real situations to make informed decisions when choosing between many alternatives in risk analysis; takes into consideration the risks, probabilities, and impacts; each branch is calculated with the below formula
- EMV: expected monetary value
- EV: expected schedule cost
- P: probability
- I: Impact
- EMV = P x I OR EV = P x I
- perform quantitative risk analysis
Decision-Making
- monitor and control project work
- perform integrated change control: sometimes from voting and sometimes autocratic
- define scope
- estimate activities: vote on how confident everyone is about the estimate; fist of five technique
- estimate project costs
- acquire resources
- manage team
- plan stakeholder engagement: prioritize/rank stakeholders
- monitor stakeholder enagement
Decomposition/Deconstruction
work packages in WBS are decomposed into the activities required to produce the work package deliverables and thus achieve project objectives; the work packages are decomposed to define activitiies
- create the wbs: break down deliverables into work packages
- define activities: break down work packages into activities
Design for X
philosophy that takes one specific attribute and designs deliverable around it; might be cost, time, or return on investment; evaluates effectiveness of quality management and team’s ability to meet objectives; X is an attribute or quality that is an objective
- manage quality
Design of Experiments
type of alternatives analysis; experimentation is performed to determine statistically what variables improve quality, such as ways to deliver the same quality but cheaper; fast and accurate
- plan quality: compare results to determine best choice for quality for remainder of the activity
Document Analysis
- monitor and control project work
- close project or phase
- manage quality: review documented quality reqirements
- identify risks: look at all of the plans and agreements to identify risks, particularly assumption log
- identify stakeholders
Document Analysis
- monitor and control project work
- close project or phase
Earned Value Analysis
- monitor and control project work
- control schedule:
- SPI = EV / PV
- control costs:
- CPI = EV / AC
- control procurements
Emotional Intelligence
- manage team
- manage communications
- manage stakeholder engagement: see the project from stakeholders’ perspective and try to understand their needs and concerns
Expert Judgment
- project charter: expertise of executive committee for how project aligns with strategic plan; stakeholders about compliance issues
- develop project management plan:
- direct and manage project work
- manage project knowledge
- monitor and control project work
- perform integrated change control
- close project or phase
- plan scope management
- define scope: consultants, stakeholders, and other SMEs
- plan quality
- create the wbs
- plan schedule management
- define activities
- estimate activity durations
- plan cost management
- estimate project costs: particularly in making analagous estimates
- determine budget
- control costs
- plan resource management
- estimate activity resources
- plan communications management
- monitor communications
- plan risk management
- identify risks
- perform qualitative risk analysis
- perform quantitative risk analysis
- plan risk responses
- implement risk responses
- plan procurement management
- conduct procurements
- control procurements
- identify stakeholders
- plan stakeholder engagement
- manage stakeholder engagement
Facilitation
- project charter: person external to organization can help group find consensus about project
- collect requirements: achieve consensus about requirements through moderated discussion
- define scope: gather SMEs and stakeholders with expert knowledge to nail down scope
- identify risks
- perform qualitative risk analysis
- perform quantitative risk analysis
- plan risk responses
Failure Analysis
analyze failed components of deliverables or failed processes to determine what led to the failure; typically results in corrective action or change request
Financing
- determine budget
Flow Charts
- plan quality
- manage quality
- control quality
Focus Groups
- project charter: stakeholders identify success criteria and risks; include stakeholders by area
- develop project management plan
- collect requirements: help elicit requirements and opinions from stakeholders and SMEs about aspect of product or project
Funding Limit Reconciliation
reconcile what we planned we were going to spend and what was actually spent; if they do not match, there’s a cost variance
- determine budget
Ground Rules
- stick to rules in team charter and in scope statement
- team needs to stick to change control system when stakeholders request a change that would be scope creep
- manage stakeholder engagement
Quality Histogram
bar chart that shows the frequency of data points; in quality control, shows the frequency of particular measurements to identify which problems need the most immediate attention or are most likely to prevent the problect from achieving quality results
- manage quality
- control quality
Historical Information Review
- determine budget
Individual and Team Assessments
- develop team
Influencing
being persuasive about the goals and acitvities of the project; employ active listening and effective listening; be aware of issues on the project team and maintain trust; focus project goals and use methodical decision-making
- manage team
- control resources
- implement risk responses
Information Management
- manage project knowledge
Inspection
- validate scope: customer inspects work not only at end of project but also at end of phases and other planned intervals
- control scope
- control quality
- control procurements
Integrated Change Control System
- process
- change requests comes in, usually from scope, cost, or schedule
- go through change management system and if they affect features and functions, go through configuration management system
- either approved, declined, deferred
- if approved: project management plan updated and project docs updated span no matter what change request log updated
- perform integrated change control
Interpersonal and Team Skills
* project charter: competing objectives
- develop pm plan
- manage project knowledge
- define scope
- acquire resources
- manage team
- control resources
- plan communications management
- manage communications: cultural awareness, political awareness, networking
- monitor communications
- identify risks
- perform qualitative risk analysis
- perform quantitative risk analysis
- plan risk responses
- implement risk responses
- conduct procurements
- manage stakeholder engagement: cultural awareness, political awareness
- monitor stakeholder engagement: cultural awareness, networking, political awareness
Interviews
- project charter: gather information about requirements, assumptions, approval criteria, and constraints
- develop pm plan
- identify stakeholders: ask stakeholders about interests and who else might be stakeholders
- collect requirements: interview expert stakeholders for product or project
- plan quality
- identify risks: insight on hidden risks and unknowns; how do systems work and how often are there problems? what makes your job hard? what has changed? are there changes that happen frequently? what do you do when these things happen? are there project managers who have done similar projects?
- perform qualitative risk analysis
- perform quantitative risk analysis
- plan risk responses
Knowledge Management
- manage project knowledge
Leadership
- Eight Characteristics of Good Leader
- Guide: lead people to results
- Motivate: inspire and direct
- Negotiate: seek fair result
- Resilience: work through issues
- Communicate
- Solve: solve problems
- Think: critical thinking skills
- Personal: interpersonal skills
- manage team
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Logical Data Model
a visual representation of an organization’s data, described in business language and independent of any specific technology; can be used to identify where data integrity or other quality issues can arise.
- plan quality
Make-or-Buy Analysis
- (build out of pocket - buy out of pocket) / (build monthly fees - buy monthly fees) = number of months it will take for the build it yourself to make sense
- plan procurement management plan
Marginal Analysis
finding the point at which the benefits or revenue to be received from improving quality equals the incremental cost to achieve quality
Market Analysis
- sole source, single source, and oligopology
- plan procurement management
Matrix Diagram
visual representation of relationship between two or more sets of items; used to sort quality requirements and identify requirements most critical to the project; helps determine metrics
- plan quality
- manage quality
Meetings
- project charter: identify requirements, determine summary milestones, define success criteria, include stakeholders
- develop project management plan: kickoff meeting after plan is approved
- direct and manage project work
- manage project knowledge
- monitor and control project work
- perform integrated change control
- close project or phase
- plan scope management
- plan schedule management
- define activities
- plan cost management
- control quality
- plan resource management
- acquire resources
- develop team
- plan communications management
- manage communications: it is particulary important to understand how to timebox meetings, have agendas to keep people on task, and take notes so that verbal commitments are put into writing
- monitor communications
- plan risk management
- identify risks
- perform qualitative risk analysis
- perform quantitative risk analysis
- identify stakeholders
- plan stakeholder engagement
- manage stakeholder engagement
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Mind Mapping
diagram of ideas or notes to help generate, classify, or record information
- collect requirements
- plan stakeholder engagement
Monte Carlo Analysis
- software that develops a three-point estimate and can predict the probability of the project
- ending on a specific day
- costing a specific amount
- having an activity being on the critical path
- indication of overall project risk
- deals with path convergence
- creates an S curve that shows as project continues, risk decreases
- develop schedule
- control schedule
- perform quantitative risk analysis
Multicriteria Decision Analysis
rank ideas by quantifying requirements using a decision matrix based on factors such as risk levels, time estimates, cost and benefits estimates
- perform integrated change control
- collect requirements
- plan quality
- manage quality
- control quality
- acquire resources: weighing the cost, training needs, skills, knowledge, and availability of resources
- plan risk responses
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Negotiation
- acquire resources: work with functional managers (if necessary) to acquire resources when they are needed; negotiate with other project managers to share project resources
- control resources
- conduct procurements
- manage stakeholder engagement
Nominal Group Technique
usually done during same meeting as brainstorming; follows these steps 1) question or issue is posed 2) all participants write down and share ideas 3) group discusses what has been shared 4) ideas are ranked 5) privately vote on a score from 1 to 5 to find a consensus on highest-scoring ideas
- collect requirements
One-Point Estimating
estimator submits one estimate per activity; fast but may encourage people to pad estimates, doesn’t provide project manager with information about risks, can result in a schedule without stakeholder buy-in
Organizational Breakdown Structure
shows organizational chart to assign work package responsibilities to departments or divisions
- plan resource management
Organizational Theory
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation
- McGregor’s Theory of X and Y
- McLelland’s Theory of Needs
- Ouchi’s Theory Z
- Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
- plan resource management
Parametric Estimating
creating a mathematical equation using data from historical record or other sources to create estimates; analyzes relationships between historical data and other variables;
- estimate activity durations
- estimate project costs: an example in cost is cost per unit; unit cost should be stable and processes should be repeatable or else the cost estimate will be inaccurate
- estimate activity resources
Pareto Chart
a type of histogram that arranges frequency by most frequent to least frequent; the tallest bar will be on the left; in quality, shows the most frequent cause of errors down to most infrequent cause of errors
- control quality
Performance Reviews and Analysis
- control schedule: formally analyze how the project is performing in terms of the schedule
- control quality
- control resources
- control procurements
PERT Estimating (Beta Distribution)
(P + 4M + O)/6; most likely is weighted 4 times
- estimate activity durations
- estimate project costs
PMIS
- direct and manage project work
- sequence project activities
- develop project schedule
- control schedule
- estimate project costs
- estimate resources
- manage team
- control resources
- manage communications
- monitor communications
- implement risk responses
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Qualitative Probability and Impact Matrix
data representation technique that can be used to qualitatively analyze risk; rating system with probability on x axis and impact on y
- perform qualitative risk analysis
Problem Solving
- manage quality
- control resources
Process Analysis
when the same activities or work packages are repeated, use lessons learned from previous completion of activities/work packages to improve the process; part of continuous improvement
- manage quality
Product Analysis
analyze the objectives and description of the product as stated by customer or sponsor and in turn that information is used to define tangible deliverables; project manager makes sure product and project scope are understood and accurate
- define scope: analyze description of product, state requirements, or techniques like value engineering to ensure requirements have been understood
Project Reporting
send stakeholders status reports, trend reports, progress reports, forecast reports, variance reports, earned value reports, project metric, retrospective findings, or lessons learned
- manage communications
Prompt Lists
questions you ask that are standard for the type of the work that you do
- identify risks
- perform quantitative risk analysis
Quality Improvement Methods
- manage quality
Quantitative Impact Matrix
takes each significant risk event and multiplies the probability of it happening by the dollar amount it would cost if it happened; adding these gives contingency reserve
- perform quantitative risk analysis
Questionnaires and Surveys
- collect requirements: elicit requirements and opinions from large group of stakeholders
- control quality
- identify stakeholders
Regression Analysis
statistical approach that uses historical information to predict future cost; must determine which factors from historical information matter the most
- close project or phase
- estimate project costs: use historical costs to predict costs on current project
Reserve Analysis
as part of mitigating risk, reserves are estimated, then the Plan Risk Responses process is performed to reduce the risk, and then a revised reserve is created; includes contingency and management reserves
- estimate activity durations: schedule risks are usually accounted for with management reserves, which is added to the project duration but not project baseline
- estimate project costs: contingency reserves for “known unknowns”
- determine budget
- control costs
- monitor risks
Resource Histogram
visualizes resource requirements and compares necessary resources to their availability; assists project manager with resource leveling
Resource Optimization
finding ways to adjust the use of resources; resource smoothing and resource leveling
- develop schedule
- control schedule
Responsibility Matrix Chart
shows activity and the team member who is responsible and who is accountable
- RACI: responsible, accountable, consulted, informe
- plan resource management
Rewards and Recognition
- develop team
- manage team
Risk Audits
audits performed during meetings to evaluate the overall process of risk management on the project; auditing process was documents in the risk management plan
Risk Categorization
use risk breakdown structure (RBS) to identify and document risk categories
categories: external, internal, technical, commercial, unforseeable
sources: cost, quality, scope, resources, customer/stakeholder satisfaction
* perform qualitative risk analysis
Risk Parameters Assessment
- urgency: how long before risk may happen
- proximity: how long before risk affects a project objective
- dormancy: how long after a risk has occurred will its impact be noticed
- manageability
- controllability: how easily can the outcome be controlled
- detectability
- connectivity
- strategic impact: impact on other strategic goals
- propinquity: relationship to key stakeholders
- perform qualitative risk assessment
Rolling Wave Planning
process of planning and doing work multiple times throughout the project; imminent work is planned in detail while more distant work is planned at a higher level until it is closer; an aspect of progressive elaboration
- define activities
Root Cause Analysis
- monitor and control project work
- control scope
- control schedule
- manage quality
- control quality
- identify risks
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Run Chart
used in quality control; similar to a control chart, but run charts track trends over time by including calendaring information; five up or down consecutively constitutes a trend; closer the dots are together, there was a shorter amount of time to accumulate those instances; shows trends but does not show upper or lower control limits or mean
- control quality
Salience Model
groups stakeholders based on
- power
- urgency: how much attention will they require due to investment in project
- legitimacy: do they have a legitimate need to participate given the benefits for them
Scatter Diagram (Scatter Plot)
shows the relationship between two variables to determine whether or not there is correlation;.in quality control, used to determine actual results vs. expected results and forecast future outcomes of the project
- manage quality
- control chart
Schedule Compression
utilizing float to fast track activities on the critical path
- develop schedule
- control schedule
Schedule Network Analysis
umbrella term for critical path method, schedule compression, finding lead and lag, what if analysis, resource optimization and Agile release planning
- develop schedule
Sensitivity Analysis
- technique used to analyze and compare the potential impacts of identified risks – will this wreck the project?
- examines each project risk on its own merit – not compared to other risk events – and see which risk event has the greatest effect on the project
- can examine how a risk affects the net present value
- tornado diagram can be an output
- perform quantitative risk analysis
Source Selection Analysis
- plan procurement management
Stakeholder Analysis
- plan risk management
- identify stakeholders
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix
data representation tool used to compare stakeholders’ current and desired level of engagement
- plan communications management
- monitor communications
- plan stakeholder engagement
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Stakeholder Impact Cube
- three-dimensional model used to represent aspects or dimensions of a stakeholder group
- often represents power, attitude, and interest
- plan stakeholder engagement
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Stakeholder Power/Interest Grid
- map stakeholders based on level of power and interest in outcome
- plan stakeholder engagement
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Statistical Sampling
method used to take samples of products to determine quality as opposed to examining all of the products; a sample size that will adequately represent the population can be determined
- control quality
Storytelling
- manage project knowledge: temembers and experts explain tacit knowledge
Strategies for Threats and Opportunities
- record responses and owners recorded in risk register
- overall project negative risk
- escalate: outside of project manager’s authority so escalate risk response to management
- avoid: not take the risk at all by changing the scope
- transfer: hire a vendor to transfer the risk
- mitigate: reduce possibility and/or impact of risk
- accept: either ones that are difficult to control or low impact
- overall project positive risk
- escalate
- exploit: make conditions ideal to take advantage of risk
- share: partner up with another organization to take advantage of risk you otherwise would not be able to
- enhance: put odds in your favor for risk to happen
- accept
- contingency plans describe the specific actions that will be taken if risks occur
- fallback plans describe the actions that will be taken if contingency plans fail
- residual risks
- passively accepted risks that remain after risk planning; normally smaller impact or lower chance risks
- secondary risks
- risks created by risk responses
- plan risk responses
SWOT Analysis
examines the project to identify its strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats that could originate from the strengths and weaknesses
- identify risks
System Analysis
studying how a system or the way work gets done and how can we improve upon the existing system
- define scope
Team-Building
project manager guides interactions between team members and builds trust; developing the WBS and a team charter are team-building activities; team-building should start early and is a concerted effort throughout the life of the project
- develop team
Technical Performance Analysis
uses project data to compare planned versus actual completion of technical requirements to determine if there is any variance from what was planned
- monitor risks
Testing and Inspection
testing is making sure the product conforms to the planned quality standards; unique to the discipline of the project; done throughout the project as products or components are created
- plan quality: plan the methods for testing and inspecting product
- control quality: implement the planned testing and inspection
Three-Point Estimating
estimators give an optimistic (O), pessimistic (P), and most likely (M) estimate for each activity; used to calculate a risk-based expected duration estimate; includes triangular (simple average) estimation method and PERT estimation method
- estimate activity durations: use triangular distribution (straight) estimating when there is not much historical information and beta (weighted) estimating when there is historical information available
Training
- develop team
Trend Analysis
finding patterns in data and determining the cause
- monitor and control project work
- close project or phase
- control scope: what variances keep happening and why
- control schedule: what are variances in schedule are trends and why are they happening
- control costs
- plan quality: how many errors are you experiencing with an item; how many errors have there been since you took preventive action?
- control resources
- control procurements
Variable Sampling
does a product’s quality fall within the project’s acceptable range of variance
- control quality
Variance Analysis
what did we make vs. what was asked for; look at performance measurements, determine degree of variance, corrective or preventive actions
- close project or phase: used to write final report
- control scope: variance in what was delivered and what was requested and what as the magnitude
- control schedule: difference between baseline and actual performance
- control costs
Vendor Proposal Evaluation
- use selection criteria established in planning to weigh the proposals
- criteria are weighted by importance and cost is not always the most important
- conduct procurements
Voting
- perform integrated change control
- collect requiredments: used to prioritize requirements
- validate scope
- estimate project costs
- monitor stakeholder engagement
Earned Value Analysis
- monitor and control project work
Reestimating
- must reestimate the work at least once during the life of a project to make sure you can still satisfy the project objectives within the schedule, budget, and other project constraints and make adjustments if you cannot
- Control Schedule
Risk Data Quality Assessment
- assess the data available for a given risk for reliability and accuracy to determine if the risk is valid and whether more research is needed to understand it
- must have data to perform risk analysis
- perform qualitative risk analysis
