Qualitative Analysis
Estimating Probability Using a Qualitative Analysis
Using a qualitative analysis to estimate probability, you assign a low, medium, or high category to the probability that the event will occur as follows:
Because low, medium, and high are relative terms, ensure that everyone on your team involved in the process of estimating probability uses these terms similarly.
To illustrate, consider an example of a person skydiving. When a person is skydiving, a parachute malfunction is a risk with a low probability.
Defining the Impact Using a Qualitative Analysis
After you define the probability for each risk event, you define the impact. To do so, ask yourself, what the impact to the project will be if this risk occurs. In a qualitative analysis, impact can be categorized as low, medium, or high, as follows:
In the skydiving example mentioned earlier, if the parachute does not open, the impact is (no pun intended) high.