Managing the Mitigation, Stages and Responses to Risk in the Built Environment: Project Life Cycle Risk Assessments

As project managers, our experience in managing projects expands in direct correlation with our ability to recognize, analyze and assess project lifecycle risk events.

The knowledge area of risk management is continuously addressed across the lifecycle of
the project. It begins in the feasibility, initiation and planning stages of product/project development.

Managing and mitigating risk in the built environment requires risk assessments and evaluated responses at various stages of the project.

Successful organizations develop a criterion by which elements of potential projects are evaluated. The criterion might include areas such as an organization’s strategic goals and resources, their target and niche markets, the duration and relationship potential of the endeavor, the project culture and the organizations  risk tolerances and thresholds.

How adversely an organization evaluates risk, establishes, maintains and develops their expertise. In the initial stage of the project life cycle, risk concepts are identified, and categories established to determine the probability, frequency and impact of a risk occurrence.

At this stage, categories are broad and may include areas such as internal and external risks, client and end user risks, and resource and supplier risk assessments.

Source categories establish components, stakeholder requirements and human/capital resources. Scope, time, cost and quality may be considered and everyone with a vested interest or involved in the project should be considered in the evaluation process.

The planning stage introduces document, requirement and constructability reviews and assessment of clarifications/assumptions. In addition, project and product related SWOT and root cause analysis’ can be addressed and appropriately assigned.

Risks identified are assigned to a risk register with potential responses for mitigation, monitoring and ownership for the project life cycle. Qualitative risk analysis is applied to each risk to determine probability and impact. Quantitative risk analysis evaluates and determines the monetary impact and fiscal probability of the risk.

Not all risk is bad. Risks can and often have a positive impact on the project and results.

As any project progresses, changes and issues arise, thus, introducing new and/or secondary risks that can be captured and should be promptly assessed as to lessen residual impact to the project goals and objectives.

In the closeout and project turnover stage, risk monitoring is particularly critical during the transfer of ownership to the performing organization (warranty period) while the end user is utilizing and maintaining the product.

Depending on the scope of engagement, this can be a determining factor of how well your organization performed and instrumental in assessing the successful completion of your project and project/product deliverables. NFB

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