Project Risk Management: Plotting and Managing Risk In Projects

Project Risk Management: Building and Maintaining a Risk Register

Devin Deen outlines a practical process for identifying, prioritizing, mitigating, and regularly reviewing project risks.

Risk Management Playbook

• Identify risks collaboratively: Bring together the project team, client representatives, and relevant vendors for a risk-identification session rather than relying only on emailed input. Invite perspectives from people across seniority levels and roles.
• Consider key project dimensions: Identify risks related to scope, time, cost, and quality, including schedule bottlenecks and components where quality may suffer.
• Capture and organize input: Use color-coded sticky notes to categorize risks—for example, by time, resourcing, budget, or scope and functionality. Work through project phases or components, then transfer the findings into a risk register.
• Assess likelihood and impact: Rate each risk on a simple low / medium / high scale for both likelihood and impact.
• Prioritize mitigation work: Start with risks that are both highly likely and high impact, then work down toward lower-priority risks. Develop mitigation plans for every risk in the register, with more detail devoted to the highest-priority items.
• Quantify costs: Estimate both the cost of each mitigation and the financial impact if the risk occurs. Record these amounts in the risk register.
• Review at least weekly: Revisit the register in project meetings. Add newly identified risks and update likelihood or impact ratings as circumstances change. Treat the register as an active management tool, not a one-time planning document.

Example

For a winter event threatened by bad weather, possible mitigations include buying insurance or budgeting for a repeat event. The risk’s consequences could include extra costs and schedule disruption, such as the need to reschedule resources.

Key Takeaway

Addressing risks proactively can help protect project time, budget, and quality. If a risk becomes an issue, it may lead to greater costs, delays, and frustration.

Presenter and source: Devin Deen, Content Director at ProjectManager.com.