Embedding engagement
Risks:
risk management
Risk management
There are five key components of risk management which need to be considered when managing projects. These are to:
- Identify the requirements of the project
- Identify and analyse the risks associated with these requirements, and their consequences
- Plan to minimise risks , particularly those associated with the most critical consequences
- Assess the risks after plans for minimisation
- Control risks
Below is a partially worked through example of assessing risk in this way, associated with a relatively small, self-contained community engagement project.
1. Requirements of the project
To organise a series of workshops in a police service area about strengths and weaknesses of policing and priorities for improvement
Key characteristics of the project are as follows:
- Two internal team members - paid police service staff
- One external consultant - required to aid publicity and facilitation of events
- Project owned by senior management team and police authority members
- Project will run from March to May
- Reporting to authority in June
- Recommendations to feed into budget setting process in the Autumn
2. Identification and analysis of risks
The internal project team and sponsors might identify risks under the following categories.
A. Human
Staff (internal/external)
Team members
- Will not have sufficient time or skills to complete the work
- Will be absent from work for a period of time and need cover for their posts and responsibilities
Consultant
- Will not deliver what is required on the project: content, facilitation style, timing
- Will deliver partially but facilitation support will be poor quality; we won't know this until the events themselves!
Participants
Team will not be able to involve sufficient people or raise interest in the project
B. Organisational
Reputation
Press have a negative perception of the project
Resources
Resources are insufficient for the project
C. Environmental/external
- Outside factors lead to the failure of the project - for example sickness of staff, consultant, other events clashing with the consultations
- There is an accident at the venue and people are hurt
D. Procedural
- The event planning process is insufficiently robust so things go wrong on the night
- Design for the events does not work
- Reporting is delivered late
3. Plan to minimise risks
The project team might suggest that the following plans were put in place to minimise risks. You might want to think about plans for minimising other risks that are left blank.
Risk |
Plans to minimise risk |
Subsequent risk assessment |
|---|---|---|
A. HumanTeam members |
||
Will not have sufficient time or skills to complete the work |
Ensure staff are sufficiently trained through skill analysis for project and training needs analysis for individuals Assess other organisational tasks for the postholder over the duration of the project and ensure hours allocated to the project are sufficient |
L |
Will be absent from work for a period of time and need cover for their posts and responsibilities |
Brief other staff in the team and the senior project sponsors so staff can take over responsibilities if necessary |
L/M |
Consultant |
||
Will not deliver what is required on the project: content, facilitation style, timing. |
||
Will deliver partially but facilitation support will be poor quality; we won't know this until the events themselves! |
Gain referees from similar types of work in the past Ask whether you can watch the consultant in action at a similar event |
M/H |
Participants |
|
|
Team will not be able to involve sufficient people or raise interest in the project |
Actively recruit participants Ensure targeted publicity Encourage people to register before the event so you know rough numbers |
H |
B. Organisational |
||
Reputation Press have a negative perception of the project |
Ensure timely press releases on the purpose of the project Invite press along to part of one event Include participant feedback in a report to the press after the event |
M |
Resources Resources are insufficient for the project. |
||
C. Environmental/external |
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Outside factors lead to the failure of the project - for example sickness of staff, consultant, other events clashing with the consultations. |
||
There is an accident at the venue and people are hurt |
||
D. Procedural |
||
The event planning process is insufficiently robust so things go wrong on the night |
Hold sufficient planning and briefing meetings, in good time for the first event Consider a dry run of one event with colleagues Include time for debrief after the first event to ensure that subsequent events run smoothly |
L/M |
Design for the events does not work. |
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Reporting is delivered late. |
||
Other risks (PLEASE FILL IN)
|
4. Assess risks
The next step is to assess risks in order of magnitude, considering plans put in place to minimise risks, to enable to you prioritise and decide which to concentrate resources on during the life of the project.
5. Control risks
From the risk assessment analysis, team members on the project will be able to identify areas to concentrate on during the life of the project. In the case of the above partial analysis, the project manager might want to start with managing the consultant's quality of work and ensuring participant attendance.
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