Traditional risk registers are performative theater. Use a 'Learning Board' with three columns: 'Assumption,' 'Test,' and 'What We Learned.' This reframes risk management as a continuous discovery process and serves as a transparent communication tool for stakeholders, replacing bureaucratic documentation.
Instead of creating a massive risk register, identify the core assumptions your product relies on. Prioritize testing the one that, if proven wrong, would cause your product to fail the fastest. This focuses effort on existential threats over minor issues.
Business viability is often siloed to executives or sales, but the product manager and their team ultimately pay the price for failure. PMs must own this risk, tracking metrics like the LTV/CAC ratio to ensure the product is not just loved by users but is also sustainable.
Unlike a failed feature launch, business viability risks (e.g., wrong pricing, changing market) kill products slowly. By the time the damage is obvious, it's often too late. This makes continuous monitoring of the business model as critical as testing new features.
Executives crave predictability, which feels at odds with agile discovery. Bridge this gap by making your learning visible. A simple weekly update on tested assumptions, evidence found, and resulting decisions provides a rhythm of progress that satisfies their need for oversight without resorting to rigid plans.
Executives often avoid acknowledging a team's technical skill gaps, believing it damages morale. In reality, this sets the team up for failure by forcing them to say 'yes' to impossible tasks. Openly identifying gaps allows for a realistic plan to train, hire, or partner.
To make risk management tangible, build specific tests for Value, Usability, Feasibility, and Business Viability directly into each epic. This moves risk assessment from a separate, ignored artifact into the core development workflow, preventing it from becoming a waterfall-style gate.
When facing a major technical unknown or skill gap, don't just push forward. Give the engineering team a dedicated timebox, like a full sprint, to research, prototype, and recommend a path forward. This empowers the team, improves the solution, and provides clear data for build-vs-buy decisions.