Step-By-Step Guide on Creating a Risk Management Plan

Step 1:  Identify Historical Risks

Review what happened in previous and similar projects and record the risks that are relevant for your current project.

Determine what went off-plan in past projects and what were the biggest challenges and how were they addressed.

Step 2: Identify the Project Plan

The next step is developing the project plan. You can’t put together a comprehensive risk management project plan without a plan of how you are going to build the project.

Many of the risks come from the how’s, when’s, where, and who is doing and/or managing the work. Until those are identified, risk identification will not be complete.

Step 3: Identify Risk Against the Project Plan

The project plan provides the framework for recording the risks.

Risk or uncertainty can exist in the task itself, in the time allotted to complete it, the assignments (who is doing a job is always significant).

If you are using RiskMPsimply check off the tasks which have a risk, then identify the risk event in detail.


Step 4: Analyze the risk and identify likelihood and impact

A complete description of risk includes the event itself (identified in Step 3), a date when this event becomes relevant, and the impact on the project.

It also includes the likelihood of the risk occurring can be expressed in terms of a probability, and an owner assigned to each risk. This person is responsible for monitoring the risk and preparing mitigation alternatives.

This analysis will often help the project manager to determine better solutions to the risk at hand.

Step 5.  Communicate- Using a Risk Register

The whole point of creating this risk analysis is to communicate this new information about the project to relevant parties.

Communicate using a risk register -the analysis in Step 4 forms the contents of the risk register.

The risk register is a PMI standard method of recording and communicating the most relevant information regarding project risks.

For clients that request a risk analysis of their project, print out the executive summaries and graphs once the risk analysis is completed.

Step 6.  Plan the responses, mitigation strategies and communicate those

The last step is to create a response plan for each risk in the risk register. We can build a contingency plan and have it ready for each possible risk if it happens.

Response plans and progress should be reviewed and updated at each project management meeting.


Using a software tool like RiskMP to organize and catalogue makes the filtering and presentation easier. It simplifies the decision-making process.




More blogs from Construction Talks:

Videos on these topics: Construction & Risk Management Series

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