Perform a Preliminary Document Analysis

Gather and review documents such as industry benchmarks, lessons learned, and historical data before risk identification begins
Determine and assign who is responsible for the preliminary document analysis
Establish which documents are actually relevant to the risk process

Before a single risk gets identified, PMI-RMP expects the risk manager to have already read the room — literally. A preliminary document analysis means gathering and reviewing everything that already exists about similar work before starting fresh: industry benchmarks where available, lessons learned from past projects, historical data, and the actual sources behind that information, not just a summary someone else wrote.

This isn't a task any one person owns by default — determining and assigning who's actually responsible for the analysis (the project manager, a dedicated risk manager, a financial controller, depending on the organization) is itself part of the task. Once the documents relevant to the risk process are established, they become the foundation everything downstream — risk identification, the risk management plan, thresholds — gets built on.

Study focus: PMI tests this as a sequencing question as much as a content one — a risk manager who jumps straight to brainstorming risks without first reviewing what's already known from similar past projects is skipping a required step, not just being inefficient.

Key terms in this chapter

Preliminary document analysis · Industry benchmarks · Historical information · Lessons learned register