I told someone this article was already up on my blog and then realised I never got around to publishing it. Sorry about that.
Successful projects are generally successful because of the way they managed their risks; so I generally try to hire lucky project managers and surround them with a team of people who have (or are due for) some good karma, in order to avoid having bad things happen on the project.
But sometimes that is not enough, so I like to put in place risk registers, risk and innovation meetings and a bunch of other things to make sure I am managing my risks effectively.
But sometimes that is too much overhead for a small team to bear, so what can the team do that is easy, yet still reasonably effective?
