Managing Risks with ROAM

Importance of risks can not be emphasized enough. They can not only affect your Program Increment’s progress but can be a serious threat to your company’s repute, if not identified and mitigated properly. Risk management has become an essential part of any company’s planning method. In this article, we will discuss the measures of managing risks for the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).

Program Increment Planning is a huge ceremony in SAFe. It is an event that goes on for 2–3 days in which the entire members of the Agile Release Train, stakeholders, business owners, and C-Level individuals come together to pan out what needs to be done.

In the first day of the PI Planning, the risks are drafted and noted. In the second day, in the presence of the huge audience of the Agile Release Train, the risks are further identified and by using the ROAM technique, risks are effectively managed and worked on.

What is ROAM?

ROAM is abbreviated as Resolved, Owned, Accepted and Mitigated. These are the four categories the risks are put into and which are further described below:

1. Resolved — The risk is not a problem
2. Owned — A member of the team takes ownership of the item as it was not resolved in the meeting
3. Accepted — The risk cannot be resolved so it has to be understood and accepted for what it is
4. Mitigated — Formulate a plan to eradicate the risk

After the risks have been set in the above categories, a vote of confidence is taken from the team members. Team members raise their hands and with their fingers indicate if the risk is worth working on or not. Anything less than 3 fingers suggest that the risk needs to be addressed and worked on.

Conclusion

The risks need to be expressed honestly and transparently. Smaller risks are managed at the team level while larger risks are solved at the Program Level. The risks remain with the RTE who knows exactly who is responsible for mitigating or owning their risks. With ROAM you brilliantly clear up all the risks that can affect your project. You get the opportunity to discuss openly all the factors that can hinder your progress. It relieves the Agile Release Train of all ambiguities when addressing the risks.

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