Project Risk Register

The Project Risk Register feature in Inspire Planner allows you to manage and report on project risks in order to mitigate potential issues.

A risk is an uncertain event or condition, that if occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a Project objective. Risks are comprised of three (3) elements: the risk itself, the consequence or impact of a risk event occurring, and the likelihood or probability of a risk event occurring. Only by understanding the likelihood of a risk to some degree can a team know how important the risk is to the overall program outcome. 

If an event has already occurred, it would be considered an issue. A risk has the potential to occur; it has not actually occurred.

Documenting the known risks and capturing as many of the unknown risks as possible reduces the number of surprises on a Project.

The appropriate timing for an initial risk identification session can be somewhat tricky to determine but it should be held early, soon after the basic project requirements, milestone dates, etc. have been outlined, but before the budget and business case are baselined. Done properly, the risk identification session should identify areas that require additional effort, money, time, etc. It is vital to have an on-going risk identification process at various points throughout the Project.

This help article explains how to use the Project Risk Register in Inspire Planner.

For complete configuration instructions, please see Configuring the Project Risk Register.

Identify and Document Risks & Issues

1. In the Project, click on Risks & Issues.
   
   
    
2. Click on New.
   
   
    
3. Populate the details of the Risk/Issue.
   
   Type - will default to "Risk". A risk is an event that has not yet occurred. If it has already occurred, it is considered an issue and should be logged as such.
   
   Category - define what kind of risk/issue is being logged.
   
   Impact Level - specify the impact of the risk/issue to your Project, 1 being low and 5 being high.
   
   Probability Level - specify the probability of the risk occurring, 1 being low and 5 being high. If you are entering an Issue, you should set the Probability to "5" since it's an event that has already occurred.
   
   Risk Status - define the status of the risk/issue.
   
   Owner - select the user who will take ownership of the risk/issue. This is optional.
   
   Project - is the Project that the risk/issue is related to.
   
   Related Project Task - this is optional. You may choose to specify the Project Task that the risk/issue is related to. The look-up field will only let you select Project Tasks that are related to the Project.
   
   Date Opened - is the date the risk/issue was logged.
   
   Date Closed - is the date the risk/issue is closed.
   
   Risk Description - enter a brief summary of the risk/issue.
   
   Impact Description - describe the impact of the risk/issue. For risks, enter the potential impact of the risk. What will happen if the risk is not mitigated/eliminated?
   
   Mitigation Notes - describe the steps or actions that you can be taken to help lower or eliminate the impact or probability of the risk.
   
   Click on Save when you are finished entering the details of the risk/issue.
   
   
   
    
4. After saving the Risk/Issue, Inspire Planner then calculates the Priority Level for the Risk/Issue. The Priority Level is calculated by taking the product between the Impact Level and Probability Level.
   
   Priority Level = Impact Level x Probability Level
   
   If Priority Level is < 6 then Priority Indicator will display in Green (meaning low priority)
   If Priority Level is between 6 - 19 then Priority Indicator will display in Amber
   If Priority Level is > 19 then Priority Indicator will display in Red (meaning high priority)
   
   Please Note: The formula and thresholds for Priority Level cannot be adjusted. Therefore we do not recommend adjusting the picklist values for Impact Level and Probability Level.
   
   
    

It is good to regularly evaluate your Risks during the life of your Project and make the necessary adjustments where needed.