Employing the Right Strategy for Engaging an Industry Leader

C.

The strategy that the project manager should employ when an industry leader may join the project team is Acceptance.

Explanation: Acceptance is a strategy in risk management where the project team accepts the risk and takes no action to avoid or mitigate it. In this case, the risk is the uncertainty around the industry leader joining the project team and potentially providing additional expertise. Since this risk presents a potential benefit to the project, the project manager should accept it and not take any action to avoid or mitigate it.

Exploitation is a strategy where the project team takes advantage of the risk by changing the project plan to increase the probability of the risk occurring. In this case, exploiting the risk could involve making changes to the project plan to increase the probability of the industry leader joining the project team. However, this strategy may not be appropriate in this scenario since it may not be feasible to change the project plan solely to increase the probability of the industry leader joining the team.

Validation is a strategy where the project team seeks to obtain additional information to reduce the uncertainty of the risk. In this case, validation may involve reaching out to the industry leader to confirm their potential involvement with the project team. However, this strategy may not be necessary since the industry leader's potential involvement is already known.

Transfer is a strategy where the project team transfers the risk to a third party, typically through insurance or outsourcing. In this case, transferring the risk may not be appropriate since the risk presents a potential benefit to the project, and it may not be feasible to transfer the risk to a third party.

In summary, the project manager should employ the Acceptance strategy when an industry leader may join the project team and potentially provide additional expertise.