What is a risk and an issue- Layman Terms

This may be very obvious to someone up to speed with Project Management speak, but it can be a bit of a mystery for those not.

The other week I heard an excellent analogy which makes it crystal clear.

If you are walking down a street and there is a pile of dog muck in front of you there is a RISK that you may walk in it, if you actually step it on, boy you do have an ISSUE.

In another every day scenario, when you are planning your holiday and you have a flight at 9, and you have to travel on the M25 you have a RISK you could miss your flight, if you then miss your flight you have an ISSUE.

You will often hear talk of mitigating risks, in the holiday example a good mitigation would be to book a hotel the night before so removing the risk of travelling on the M25.

Hope these everyday examples, help breakdown some of the project management lingo.

Please leave any comments particularly for any other subjects that could be demystified.