Reference no: EM131106026

This assignment is on Risk management.

- Case study of the assignment - The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster.

First task is to solve the 42 questions. And also write a short report after solving the questions. No word limit as they are questions.

QUESTIONS

Following are a series of questions categorized according to the principles of risk management. There may not be any single right or wrong answer to these questions.

Risk Management Plan

1. Does it appear, from the data provided in the case, that a risk management plan was in existence?

2. If such a nlan did exist, then why wasn't it followed-or was it followed?

3. Is there a difference between a risk management plan, a quality assurance plan, and a safety plan, or are they the same?

4. Would there have been a better way to handle risk management planning at NASA assuming sixteen flights per year, twenty-five flights per year, or as originally planned, sixty flights per year? Why is the number of flights per year critical in designing a formalized risk management plan?
Risk Identification

5. What is the difference between a risk and an anomaly? Who determines the difference?

6. Does there appear to have been a structured process in place for risk identi-fication at either NASA or Thiokol?

7. How should problems with risk identification be resolved if there exist dif-ferences of opinion between the customer and the contractors?

8. Should senior management or sponsors be informed about all risks identified or just the overall "aggregate" risk?

9. How should one identify or classify the risks associated with using solid rocket boosters on manned spacecraft rather than the conventional liquid fuel boosters?

10. How should one identify or classify trade-off risks such as trading off safety for political acceptability?

11. How should one identify or classify the risks associated with pressure result-ing from making promises that may be hard to keep?

12. Suppose that a risk identification plan had been established at the beginning of the space program when the shuttle was still considered an experimental design. If the shuttle is now considered as an operational vehicle rather than as an experimental design, could that affect the way that risks were identified to the point where the risk identification plan would need to be changed?
Risk Quantification

13. Given the complexity of the Space Shuttle Program, is it feasible and/or prac¬tical to develop a methodology for quantifying risks, or should each situation be addressed individually? Can we have both a quantitative and qualitative risk evaluation system in place at the same time?

14. How does one quantify the dangers associated with the ice problem?

15. How should risk quantification problems be resolved if there exist differ-ences of opinion between the customer and the contractors?

16. If a critical risk is discovered, what is the proper way for the project manager to present to senior management the impact of the risk? How do you as a project manager make sure that senior management understand the ramifications?

17. How were the identified risks quantified at NASA? Is the quantification sys¬tem truly quantitative or is it a qualitative system?

18. Were probabilities assigned to any of the risks? Why or why not?

Risk Response (Risk Handling)

19. How does an organization decide what is or is not an acceptable risk?

20. Who should have final say in deciding upon the appropriate response mech-anism for a risk?

21. What methods of risk response were used at NASA?

22. Did it appear that the risk response method selected was dependent on the risk or on other factors?

23. How should an organization decide whether or not to accept a risk and launch if the risks cannot be quantified?

24. What should be the determining factors in deciding which risks are brought upstairs to the executive levels for review before selecting the appropriate risk response mechanism?

25. Why weren't the astronauts involved in the launch decision (i.e., the accep¬tance of the risk)? Should they have been involved?

26. What risk response mechanism did NASA administrators use when they issued waivers for the Launch Commit Criteria?

27. Are waivers a type of risk response mechanism?

28. Did the need to maintain a flight schedule compromise the risk response mechanism that would otherwise have been taken?

29. What risk response mechanism were managers at Thiokol and NASA using when they ignored the recommendations of their engineers?

30. Did the engineers at Thiokol and NASA do all they could to convince their own management that the wrong risk response mechanism was about to be taken?

31. When NASA pressed its contractors to recommend a launch, did NASA's risk response mechanism violate their responsibility to ensure crew safety?

32. When NASA discounted the effects of the weather, did NASA's risk response mechanism violate their responsibility to ensure crew safety?

Risk Control

33. How much documentation should be necessary for the tracking of a risk man-agement plan? Can this documentation become overexcessive and create decision-making problems?

34. Risk management includes the documentation of lessons-learned. In the case study, was there an audit trail of lessons learned or was that audit trail sim¬ply protection memos?

35. How might Thiokol engineers have convinced both their own management and NASA to postpone the launch?

36. Should someone have stopped the Challenger launch and, if so, how could this have been accomplished without risking one's job and career?

37. How might an engineer deal with pressure from above to follow a course of action that the engineer knows to be wrong?

38. How could the chains of communication and responsibility for the Space Shuttle Program have been made to function better?

39. Because of the ice problem, Rockwell could not guarantee the shuttle's safety, but did nothing to veto the launch. Is there a better way for situations as this to be handled in the future?

40. What level of risk should have been acceptable for launch?

41. How should we handle situations where people in authority believe that the potential rewards justify what they believe to be relatively minor risks?

42. If you were on a jury attempting to place liability, whom would you say was responsible for the Challenger disaster?

Second, I need report which contain

1- Executive Summary and Introduction

2- Analysis of the Question

3- Recommendations

4- Conclusion

5- References.

It should be of 750 words.

Assignment - https://www.dropbox.com/s/1sw9rwx0r3w1qxd/Combined%20file.pdf?dl=0