Risk (who takes risks, how they're evaluated). Examples of Risk principles....

• We make informed decisions about risks, and do not shy away from taking judicious risks where the possibility of the potential benefits outweighs the possibility of the potential losses (i.e., positive expected value adjusted for risk profile).
  • When making investment decisions, we evaluate all future outcomes (costs and benefits), but ignore past investments. (I.e., sunk costs are irrelevant.)

• To constrain risks, we prefer short projects over long projects by offering deliverables in modules that are each of value in themselves. (Ideally, projects should be sized so as to be completed in six months or less.)

• We identify risks at the beginning of a project, and plan to mitigate both the odds of failures and the consequences of failures (risk planning).

• We evaluate people's decisions, not the outcomes. When people take judicious risks and do everything in their power to succeed, yet fail due to factors beyond their control (i.e., when good decisions result in bad outcomes), we do not treat the lack of results as a performance deficiency. (Of course, we don't reward a lack of results.)