Risk Log in the Planning Phase

00:00 Now is the time to prepare for action.

00:04 You can do two things when faced with a risk.

00:07 Change something in advance to eliminate or lessen the risk, say doing construction in the summer months rather than the winter months, for example.

00:15 Or create a plan B in case the risk becomes reality.

00:19 The former is called mitigation and the latter contingency.

00:25 The options you have when it comes to mitigation are firstly to eliminate the risk. For example, you have planned to have big modern letters which light up all spectacular to be put on the top of your showroom.

00:38 The risk is that this area is prone to strong winds during some seasons, and there is a risk of letters falling.

00:45 To eliminate this risk completely.

00:47 You can plan to have them attached to the facade or have printed letters instead.

00:52 And of course, insurance will cover the financial risks of any damage if you choose to keep the original lettering.

00:59 If eliminating the risk is not possible or not worth the extra costs, then you can aim to reduce the severity.

01:06 For example, if it's not feasible to delay construction during the autumn and winter months, then you can prepare for damage control by training your team to work in bad conditions and store equipment that could be damaged during periods of bad weather.

01:21 If you are diligent, you can prevent major costs and delays without having to stop construction completely.

01:28 On top of that, you can reduce the probability of occurrence if you have noticed low motivation from a member of your team and their low productivity risks causing delays.

01:39 Then you can be proactive in motivating them by identifying any problems they may have or by incentivizing the work.

01:47 And if during the project you find these methods have not worked, you can let the team member go or employ an extra pair of hands.

01:56 Now, as you can probably guess, these methods can be combined and personalized as required by the project.

02:04 Great. So now let's talk about contingency planning.

02:09 Unless you have eliminated a risk completely, then a plan B is always a good idea. Document what you and the team need to do to limit the damage from an event and record it in the risk log.

02:21 For example, take the 3D visualization effects example from our log. The technology is designed to project what the cars will look like in different colors and variations.

02:33 If it's not ready when the showroom opens, we can still show them the old fashioned way with booklets and displays.

02:40 It's not ideal, but it is a better outcome than having no backup plan whatsoever.

02:45 So view your risk log as a living document that must be constantly updated.

02:51 Risks can rear their head at any point and previously identified risks can evolve. A good project manager will keep updating their risk log.

03:01 As we mentioned, risks, as well as many other areas of the project planning are often identified through communication with stakeholders.

03:09 So how about we take some time to discuss how our project manager communicates with everyone involved in the project?