A simple risk register for construction projects
At the monthly owner meeting, the owner's representative asks what could still go wrong before the building is closed in. The project manager lists six things from memory. Two of them already happened last month, and nobody has been asked to watch the other four.
Risks get discussed and then forgotten, because nobody writes them down with a name beside them. Washington State's transportation department defines a risk as an uncertainty that would affect the budget or the schedule if it occurred, and it tracks opportunities as well as threats. A register does not predict the future. It makes sure each uncertainty has someone watching it and a response agreed before it turns into an event.
- Collect risks with the people who carry them: an hour with the superintendent, the estimator and key foremen, asking what could stop, delay or add cost, and what went wrong on similar jobs.
- Write each risk as cause, event and effect: "Because the soils report shows perched water, the excavation may flood, delaying footings by up to two weeks."
- Rate likelihood and impact on a simple scale, and estimate the impact in dollars and days, which also shows how much contingency the risk could use.
- Name one owner for each risk: the person best placed to act, never "the team".
- Choose a response with an action and a date: avoid, transfer, mitigate or accept for a threat; exploit, share or enhance for an opportunity. These are the responses in the Washington State guide, which notes that transferring a risk almost always means paying a premium to whoever takes it.
- Review it at least monthly; the same guide makes risk an agenda item at regularly scheduled project meetings. Close risks that have passed, add new ones and re-rate the rest.
- Keep it short: the top 10 to 15 risks on one page, with the rest archived.
Common mistakes
- Listing categories such as "weather" or "labour" instead of specific events.
- Assigning every risk to "the GC".
- Opening the register only when the owner's report is due.
- Mixing in problems that have already happened; move those to the open-items list.
Checklist
Every register line needs
- A specific cause, event and effect
- A likelihood rating
- An impact in dollars and days
- One named owner
- A response with an action and a date
- The date it was last reviewed
Check your understanding
A risk has been rated high likelihood and high impact for three months, and nothing has changed. What does that tell you?
