What is the difference between risks and challenges

As mentioned above, a risk can be understood as the possibility of being exposed to danger or loss. From the definition itself it is clear that there is a relatively high loss for the individual than a gain. In a risk, there is no chance for the individual to benefit if he or she loses. For example, an individual who makes a risky investment has a high chance of losing everything. In such a situation, there is no benefit for the individual and only loses.

Let us pay attention to some more examples. Observe the following sentences. You should not have taken such a huge risk. What were you thinking? In both examples, the word risk highlights the danger that the individual has placed himself in. A challenge, however, is different from a risk.

A person making a risky investment is facing a risk of losing all the money. A challenge can be defined in a number of ways. Risk and challenge are two completely different things. The main difference between a risk and a challenge is that a risk is something that has the capability to hurt, harm or injure, whereas a challenge is something that motivates, interests, or engages oneself.

Essentially, a challenge is considered as a positive thing, whereas a risk is considered as a negative. A challenge is something that motivates us; that forces use to do better than we thought that was possible.

However, a risk is a behavior, action or activity that has the opportunity to cause us harm. It is something that will lead to a loss, an undesirable outcome or damage. A challenge may also lead to a loss. For example: losing a game or a project or a client. However, a challenge causes us to face our fears, face them and to do better next time even if we lost this time.

If no one cares about these impediments, the achievement of the sprint goal may no longer be guaranteed. Most of the time you encounter impediments during the Daily Scrum Meeting or the Sprint Retrospective.

Either if the participants themselves mention them or if an attentive Scrum Master recognizes impediments during the meeting. Even in normal project life without the use of Scrum there are so-called impediments. In this case it is simply problems or issues that prevent the project or the project team from making progress. These have to be solved in the same way as the impediments in Scrum. Whether you are working in a waterfall model project or in an agile project.

You should know the difference between risks, problems, issues and impediments. Only in this way can you react correctly to such situations and, if appropriate, take measures. I wish you every success! What experience have you had with Risks, Problems, Issues and Impediments? How do you deal with them in risk management? Do you agree or disagree with my statements? Share your experience with a commentary so that we can all get to know another point of view.

Thank you! Would you like to learn more about risk management in projects? My books on Project Risk Management take you an important step further! Do you know anyone who might be interested in this article?

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