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Practical PRINCE2 Risk and Issue Management Explained

By kbrady on July 15, 2011

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Many of the Big 5 IT Consultancies consider risk and issue management to be one of the most important project control processes
necessary to maximise a projects chances of success. The reasons for this are easy to understand. Properly implemented risk and issue
management constantly identifies / resolves and mitigates risk and issues throughout a Project Lifecycle (removing the barriers to
delivery).

Before we explain how to set-up risk and issue management on your project, let’s start with the
basics:- PRINCE2 Courses
Foundation, Practitioner & Professional
High Pass Rates, Low Class Numbers
What is a PRINCE2 Risk? Exam Pass Guarantee
From £700
What is PRINCE2 Issue?

Now we understand what risks and issues are we can now start thinking about How to implement risk and issue management on your
project?
How to set-up risks and issues management?

Step 1 – Identify your Projects Stakeholders. To help the following diagram identifies the typical stakeholder groups you would expect
to see on a Project. You need to identify the people in each group:-

Step 2 – Set-up a project organisation. You need everyone who is working in or for the project to have clear roles and responsibilities
and to assemble them into a coherent project organisation. This should include a Project Board to provide continuous governance
throughout the projects lifecycle. Governance is all about providing constant steer to make sure a project stays aligned with its objectives.
Also, this board is a key escalation point for the handling of risks and issues, which are beyond the project manager’s authority to deal
with. A typical PRINCE2 project organisation is illustrated below:-

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Step 3 – Develop a Risk and Issue Management Strategy. PRINCE2 handles these 2 subjects separately and recommends the
following:-

Risk Management Strategy – A “manual” for how you are going to handle risks on your project.

Configuration Management Strategy – A “manual” for how you will handle changes and issues for your project.

This document describes how risks and issue management will be run throughout your project life cycle. PRINCE2 recommends that these
strategy documents form part of your Project Initiation, and get the Project Board to review it and sign it off. This legitimises your
implementation of the next steps.

Step 4 – Create Risk & Issue Logs /registers (Excel or Word is great for this) and place it on a server with shared access and make it
available to all your stakeholders.

Step 5 – “Seed” the logs with Risks & Issues – As Project Manager you should have some idea of the key risks and issues which are
facing your project. Populate these logs with your risks and issues and leave the resolution /mitigation ownership fields blank. No one is
charged with the responsibility of removing these barriers to delivery at this stage.

Step 6 – Ask Stakeholders to come forth with new risks & issues – I usually do this request by email and include all the members of the
project board. They are all expected to make entries directly in the issue and risk logs and leave the assignment fields blank as in step 5.
PRINCE2 recommends that any new risks or issues are notified to the Project Manager so they don’t get overlooked. However, in practice,
if you, as a Project Manager, are reviewing your logs regularly it shouldn’t be a problem having other people adding risks and issues.

Step 7 – Set-up weekly Risk & Issue Project Team Meeting – Assemble the project team and work through the risks and issue logs

Discuss and assign ownership for each unresolved /unmitigated risk and issue. A risk owner is assigned based on who is the
most likely to be able to resolve /mitigate a given risk or issue or keeping an eye on it. An individuals judged ability to resolve
/mitigate a risk /issue is based on the following factors:-
Proximity to the risk or issue (directly effects them).
The Person has an interest in seeing the risk /issue being mitigated
Authority to resolve /mitigate an assigned risk /issue.
Capability to resolve /mitigate the risk or issue i.e experience, relevant domain knowledge.

Look at the progress made to resolve /mitigate each risk and issue logged and as team work together to assist the various owners
in their struggles to find ways to mitigate /resolve assigned risks and issues.

Select risks and issues for Escalation – Assign risks and issues to yourself where it is clear they cannot be resolved or mitigated at
project team level and escalated to the project board for further help and assistance or even further risk /issue assignment to a project
board member.

Check for new Risks & Issues – Do a round table to see if any new risks and issues need to be logged and assigned.

Step 8 – Escalate risks and issues to the Project Board – Report to the Project Board all the project risks and issues threatening the
project’s success, plus highlights a subset of the top 10 risks & issues (biggest threats). The purpose of this is so the Project Board can get
a feel for the projects current “state of health” and to offer support in reducing the numbers of high impact risks and issues. This support
could also include the escalation of issues and risks for specific board resolution / mitigation decisions. The project board would have the
power to assign escalated risks and issues to specific board members for later resolution /mitigation.
Just repeat Steps 6 and 7 weekly and Step 8 in accordance with Project Boards wishes and you have done one of the most important things you can do to assure your projects
success.

© 2011 – 2012, Kingsmead Internet Investments Ltd. All rights reserved.

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