It is absolutely preferred to begin addressing risk during the planning phase of the project. I think we can all agree that the likelihood of the project's success increases when project managers and the team look at potential areas of risk early and perform contingency planning and scenario planning. The earlier that you start addressing risk the better chance you have of not letting an issue catching you by surprise and severely impacting the schedule. When planning a project, the Project Manager along with selected senior project team members need to go through the phases of the project and begin identifying areas where there are potential hazards. The process of contingency planning and scenario planning play a key role in building a solid Risk Management Plan. One area that is particularly tricky are tasks that have dependencies on outside organization (can be from another project effort within the same company but it is considered outside since the PM does not have direct control of its outcome) are especially vulnerable to risk and must be addressed. When assessing this type of risk, the PM should be thinking of questions like:
1. What happens if the product we need is not delivered on the date we need to have it in house?
Are there alternatives?
Is there another set of tasks that can be performed while waiting for the outside product to show up?