A risk register template is a useful tool in project management and risk management used to determine any potential risks in the project. It is a precise and informational document that contains many key components that assist business and individuals in identifying any risks associated with projects.
Table of Contents
Importance of a risk register template:
If you well aware about risk management, you also know that a risk register template is a highly important document. The most important part of managing risks is to work strategically and deal with any potential issues that may happen when you are ahead of the project. So, you should keep a risk register template to list down any potential risks. Then, make a strategy to get your project back on track. Let us discuss some benefits of using a risk register template;
- You can gather possible risks and prepare for them.
- When you have list down all the risks, you can prepare a plan with actionable steps. This plan makes sure that if any of these risks may happen your project member can deal with them.
- After that, assign your members of the team to deal with any potential risks that may happen. While doing this, ensure that to include assignments when you are preparing plans for dealing with risks.
- In addition, if your assumed risks wouldn’t occur, you can still use this document as your reference for future projects.
Components of a risk register template:
If you are in charge of a specific project then creating a risk register helps you a lot. Below are the most essential components to include in your risk register;
Risk category:
Here, you categorize risks that may include time, resources, environmental, scope, and cost. By using categories you can think of the most probable risks that may occur. You should group them together for your reference.
Risk Description:
In this section, include a short description of each of the risks. It’s important because anyone who reads your risk register knows what each risk is all about.
Risk ID:
To determine and keep track of the information in your document, include a unique ID number. By assigning risk ID numbers you can easily find them when risks may occur.
Project impact:
How the risk might impact the project, provide a short description of it. By providing this information you can identify which are the most urgent risks to deal with when several occur at the same time.
Likelihood:
Discuss the probability that each of the risks would occur and become an issue. You can use qualitative estimations. But you can also use quantitative estimations if you have adequate information.
Consequence:
Write down the consequences of a specific risk if it may occur in reality. In this way, you and your team can know how serious the risks are and how to deal with them.
Risk rank:
This refers to the level of each of the risks. Here you can come up with the ranking by merging the consequence and probability of each risk.
Risk trigger:
It is also significant to indicate the triggers. This would show that you have to start implementing your plans. Thus, you can exactly know when you deal with the risks.
Prevention plan:
The action plan you prepare in order to protect the occurrence of risks will refer in this section. Preventing issues is better than having to deal with them.
Contingency plan:
Some risks might still occur after all your prevention efforts. So, you have to create different action plans to deal with such types of risks. By doing this, your project won’t have to get delayed.
Risk owner:
The person whom you assign to manage the risk will mention here. Every risk owner knows about the contingency plan so that they know what to do.
Residual risk:
This refers to the risks that still remain when you have deal with them. then, you can assign the level of such risks as ‘Low’.
How to create your risk register template?
You can create an effective risk register by follow the below steps;
- Arrange a brainstorm session with your members about the estimated risks of your project. Each member of team deals with different parts of the project so they provide their knowledge and expertise to input about these risks.
- Next, include a description of each risk. Also, you can’t write long descriptions so include as much detail as possible. People typically don’t understand a description that’s unclear. And with unclear description, they won’t really know what the risk about. Your description should be easy to understand. You can also ask someone to read them. If the other persons understand each of the risks easily then you are ready to go.
- The next step is to think about how these risks will impact the project. Those risks are the most important that may potentially delay your project. Therefore, these are the risks which you must deal with right away.
- Now, make up an action plan for dealing with the risks. This is the most important part of your risk register. It provides important information to every team member that how they can deal with issues when they arise.
- You should prioritize your risks. This is because that all the risks aren’t same, some do more damage than others. For each of the risk, you can assign quantitative or qualitative rankings.
- In the end, assign people to handle each of the risks.
- You can also include some additional notes and remarks at the end. It isn’t the requirement of your document but it’s quite useful for the other members of your team.
How to manage risks?
You can view your project risks in the project menu. They can be easily sorted and filtered to only view what you want to see. To manage risks, you can make them a new kind of task having rich functions for task collaboration. You can see all the risks or the particular project you’re working on by filtering them by tags.
Furthermore, the real-time project dashboard can be used and to get live and to-the-minute progress reports. This allows the team member and the manager to involve in close communication. They both are work on resolving the risk and overseeing it.
The benefits of a digital risk register template:
It is important to track and address risks continuously throughout the project lifecycle. When you use project management software to make your risk register template then it lives in the same place work happens. You can your stakeholders can track all project details in one central location rather than switching back and forth between different tools. Let us discuss below the benefits of a digital risk register template;
- It enables you to state and address project risks before they become blockers.
- When your project risks move through the steps of your risk management plan, track them. These steps begin from analyzing determined risks to accomplishing your mitigation plan.
- You can share details regarding project risks with stakeholders easily.
- Whenever project team members determine potential problems, you can include new risks to your template.
- It allows you to attach relevant documents, screenshots, and videos to give contextual details regarding every risk.
- You can see a bird’s-eye view of all project risks by having a digital risk register.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, a risk register template is a handy tool that assists in adding consistency and structure to the risk management process. With the help of this template, you can overcome issues in a faster and more efficient way. By drafting this document, you can determine and deal with risks as they come up.
Faqs (Frequently Asked Questions)
You can include the following types of project risks in your template;
1- Data security risk
2- Communication issues
3- Scheduling delays
4- Unplanned work
5- Theft of materials
You should create it during the planning stages of a project before work starts so that you can use it to specify and address risks throughout the lifecycle of the initiative.
