Checklist analysis is one of the tools and techniques of the Identify Risks process. Checklist Analysis can provide ideas for risks on a current project. Checklists can be developed based on historical information, knowledge from previous similar projects and from other sources of information. It is also possible to use the lowest level of Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) as a checklist.

Checklist analysis is quick and simple; can be used by team members who have relatively less experience in similar projects. But, the project manager has to understand that it is impossible to build an exhaustive checklist. So, care should be taken to also explore risks that do not appear on the checklist, because even highly similar projects will have their own, unique and different risks.

Checklists should be reviewed during project closure to incorporate any new lessons learned and also to improve the checklists for future projects.