Once you have identified your risks and ranked them, give special attention to the risks that could have a catastrophic effect on your team's ability to complete the project. A single point of failure is a risk that, if it were to materialize, could cause a significant amount of disruption to your project and could even shut it down. You should plan for these risks early on in the project.
For example, a lot of projects use subject matter experts (SMEs)—team members with a deep understanding of a particular job, process, department, function, technology, machine, material, or type of equipment. SMEs are involved to advise you throughout the project life cycle. Having only one SME familiar with a critical system on your team is an example of a single point of failure risk. This SME will only offer one perspective, and if they are the only person advising on the system, there is no one to offer another perspective.
Avoid
This strategy seeks to sidestep—or avoid—the situation as a whole.
Minimize
Mitigating a risk involves trying to minimize the catastrophic effects that it could have on the project. The key to minimizing risk starts with realizing that the risk exists. That is why you will usually hear mitigation strategies referred to as workarounds.
Transfer
The strategy of transferring shifts the responsibility of handling the risk to someone else.
Accept
Accept the risk as the normal cost of doing business. Active acceptance of risk usually means setting aside extra funds to pay your way out of trouble. Passive acceptance of risk is the "do nothing" approach. While passive acceptance may be reasonable for smaller risks, it is not recommended for most single point of failure risks. It is also important to be proactive and mitigate risks ahead of time whenever possible, as this may save you from having to accept risks.