Running a one-hour risk workshop at the start of a project
Two weeks before excavation starts on a municipal indoor pool, the project manager opens the company's risk register template, and it is empty. The estimator has mentioned rock, the superintendent the school playground along the north fence, and the mechanical foreman a 30-week quote for the dehumidification unit. None of it is written down.
Put the people who will build the job in a room for one hour, have each of them write risks in silence before anyone speaks, then group and rank the risks and give the top ones an owner. What a team knows about a job's risks is spread across several heads, and an open discussion records mostly what the loudest or most senior person fears. Keeping the list current afterwards is the work of the risk register.
The hour, block by block
- Before: invite six to eight people who carry the risk — the project manager, superintendent, estimator, the foremen of the riskiest trades and a designer if one can come. Name a facilitator, and send the drawings, schedule and soils report two days ahead.
- 0:00–0:10, write in silence: one risk per card, as a cause and its effect, plus at least one opportunity. Montana's transportation department describes the same technique in its risk guidelines: one risk per slip, in a timed, silent session.
- 0:10–0:25, read and group: each person reads their cards aloud while the facilitator groups them on the wall and merges duplicates.
- 0:25–0:30, look for gaps with a prompt list — ground, services, approvals, long-lead items, trades, neighbours, season, the owner's decisions — as the Montana guidelines suggest doing with a chart of risk categories.
- 0:30–0:45, rank: three votes each for the risks that would do the most damage, then one round of challenges to the order.
- 0:45–1:00, assign: one owner and a dated first action for each of the top eight to ten, sent to everyone the same day.
Common mistakes
- Letting the most senior person speak first.
- Inviting only office staff, so nobody who knows the neighbours or the trades is in the room.
- Holding it after the schedule and budget are locked.
- Ending with a list of worries and no names beside them.
Action list
Book the hour this week
- Invite six to eight people who will build the job
- Bring cards, markers, a timer and a prompt list
- Name a facilitator and a note-taker
- Silent writing first, discussion second
- Leave with the top ten, each owned and dated
Check your understanding
Twenty minutes in, the room is still arguing about whether rock is a medium or a high likelihood. What do you do?
