According to APM’s Body of Knowledge and the APM’s PRAM Guide a risk event can be either a threat or an opportunity.  That is to say that if the risk event occurred it would have either negative/bad/downside or positive/good/upside impact on one or more of the project’s objectives.  This stance is supported by ISO31000, M_o_R and PMI’s PMBOK. 

Unfortunately, the number of organisations that attempt to proactively manage opportunities appears to be very few.  It would appear that the focus in most organisations remains on the threats and as such very few opportunities are ever identified, let alone managed. 

To some people the management of opportunities represents the ability to proactively improve the ability to meet or exceed project objectives, while to others this is just an unnecessary distraction. 

As a means to understanding the pros and cons of Opportunity Management a loose debating format will be used. 

In the morning session Dr. David Hillson, author of “Effective Opportunity Management for Projects: Exploiting Positive Risk” will speak in favour of opportunity management.  Mr. Ken Evans, current Chairman of the APM Risk SIG, will speak against it. 

In the afternoon session delegates will join small round table discussions where particularly aspects of opportunity management will be further debated.  These discussions will be facilitated by the earlier speakers and other members of the Risk SIG. 

Summaries of these discussions will be presented to the whole audience and then a vote will be held on an agreed motion. 

The findings/agreements/disagreements from the main debate and table discussions will be brought together in a white paper to be published by the Risk SIG.