Consistent with the extensive literature in risk management, the QMD’s technical committee defines risk as “any deviation from the expected outcome” (Reida, 2001). This is an important distinction, as project management has traditionally defined risk in terms of uncertainty and loss. While uncertainty still holds true there is a growing acceptance that risk also encompasses opportunity as well as loss.

We therefore need to define the potential opportunity along with the potential for failure. There are several types of opportunities that can be leveraged in projects:

1. Business opportunities, such as new product development, customer involvement, and focused attention on high profit margin projects,
2. Operational opportunities, such as value-added or lean,
3. Systemic opportunities, which bring about long-term savings.

The failure is the negative side of risk associated with the “loss” of the opportunity.