Project Opportunities

A Project Opportunity is the positive mirror of a Project Risk. Where a risk is something bad that might happen, an opportunity is something good that might happen — a chance to save money, accelerate delivery, expand scope beneficially, or unlock additional value.

GreenVee models opportunities with exactly the same structure as risks, but with an upside orientation.

Note

GreenVee uses the word “Chance” in the underlying schema (chance). In these docs and in the user interface, the same concept is always called “Opportunity” — they are the same thing.

Risk vs. Opportunity — a symmetric model

	Project Risk	Project Opportunity
What it is	A bad event that might happen	A good event that might happen
Schema name	risk	chance
Action type	Risk Action (risk_action)	Opportunity Action (chance_action)
Action goal	Reduce or eliminate the threat	Capture or maximise the upside
Owner	Employee accountable for managing it	Employee accountable for pursuing it
Can attach to Gate?	Yes — open action can block sign-off	Yes — same gate linkage available

Fields

Project Opportunity uses the same fields as Project Risk, reframed for upside:

Field	What it means
Name	Short label for the opportunity
Description	Full explanation — what is the upside and why might it occur?
Type	Category (e.g. financial, commercial, technical)
Active	Whether this opportunity is still live
Owner	Employee responsible for pursuing this opportunity
Possible Value	Estimated financial upside if the opportunity is realised (with currency)
Likelihood (%)	Probability the opportunity will occur
Priority	Urgency relative to other opportunities
Degree of Opportunity	Qualitative rating of the upside size
Degree of Likelihood	Qualitative likelihood rating
Occurred Value	Actual value captured when the opportunity materialised
Occurred At / Completed At	Dates for when it happened and when the record was closed

Opportunity Actions

Each Opportunity has one or more Opportunity Actions — concrete steps to pursue the upside. They mirror Risk Actions in structure:

• Title, Type, Description, State — same meaning as for Risk Actions
• Increase of Probability (%) — how much this action is expected to raise the likelihood of the opportunity occurring
• Cost — cost of the action (investing to capture upside)
• Assignee — responsible employee
• Cost Item — optional link to a budget line
• Gate Criteria — optional link to a Gate, making the action visible at stage-gate reviews

For Project Managers

Opportunities are often overlooked. If your team notices a potential upside — a vendor offering a faster delivery, a regulatory change that reduces compliance cost — log it as an opportunity. Assign an owner and a capture action before the window closes.

Caution

Project Opportunities are independent of Portfolio Targets. Just as Project Risks do not feed Portfolio Risk Factors, Project Opportunities do not feed Portfolio Targets. See The Two Risk Worlds for context on this separation.