What risk response has been enacted in this project?

Bill is the project manager of the JKH Project. He and the project team have identified a risk event in the project with a high probability of occurrence and the risk event has a high cost impact on the project. Bill discusses the risk event with Virginia, the primary project customer, and she decides that the requirements surrounding the risk event should be removed from the project. The removal of the requirements does affect the project scope, but it can release the project from the high risk exposure. What risk response has been enacted in this project?

A.
Avoidance

B.
Mitigation

C.
Acceptance

D.
Transference

Explanation:

This is an example of the avoidance risk response. Because the project plan has been changed to avoid the risk event, so it is considered the avoidance risk response. Risk avoidance is a technique used for threats. It creates changes to the project management plan that are meant to either eliminate the risk completely or to protect the project objectives from its impact. Risk avoidance removes the risk event entirely either by adding additional steps to avoid the event or reducing the project scope requirements. It may seem the answer to all possible risks, but avoiding risks also means losing out on the potential gains that accepting (retaining) the risk might have allowed.
Answer option C is incorrect. Acceptance is when the stakeholders acknowledge the risk event and they accept that the event could happen and could have an impact on the project. Acceptance is usually used for risk events that have low risk exposure or risk events in which the project has no control, such as a pending law or weather threats.

Answer option B is incorrect. Mitigation is involved with the actions to reduce an included risk’s probability and/or impact on the project’s objectives. As the risk was removed from the project, this scenario describes avoidance, not mitigation.
Answer option D is incorrect. Transference is when the risk is still within the project, but the ownership and management of the risk event is transferred to a third party – usually for a fee. Reference: "Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), Fourth Edition"