# A short risk register people actually use > Score each risk on written scales (probability, and impact in days or money), give it an owner, a trigger and a next action, and keep the list short enough to review every week. - Course: [Project Management Without the Bureaucracy: Run One Project from Brief to Closure](https://productovi.com/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy.md) - Module: Risk and quality - Lesson 22/32, ~22 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy/a-short-register ## Which ones matter? **Alex Tutor:** The forty lines are sorted: issues have owners, assumptions have check dates, dependencies sit in the schedule. Eleven risks are left. **Leo:** Eleven is still a lot. Which ones should I lose sleep over? **Alex Tutor:** That's what a **risk register** answers. One row per risk: the statement, probability, impact, owner, trigger and next action. No more columns than people will fill in. **Danylo:** I put "likely" for the contractor being late. Vira put "likely" for her review. Same word, same worry? **Vira:** For me "likely" means almost certain. Danylo, what did you mean? **Danylo:** One in three, maybe. **Alex Tutor:** That's why the scale is written down. For the physics register: **rare** 5%, **unlikely** 20%, **possible** 50%, **likely** 80%. Everyone picks from the same four. > **Exercise:** Why does the register need a **written** probability scale? ## Impact in days or money **Sofia:** And impact? A score from 1 to 5? **Alex Tutor:** Use units the project already counts. **Days**: working days of schedule lost if nothing is done. **Money**: extra UAH against Hanna's 600,000 ceiling. Write both definitions at the top of the register. **Alex Tutor:** Then **risk exposure** is probability times impact. Vira's review: possible, 50%, times 7 days lost is 3.5 days. **Hanna:** And the ads: likely, 80%, times 30,000 UAH more is 24,000 UAH. Can I add that to Vira's 3.5? **Alex Tutor:** No. Days rank with days and money with money. And never multiply a 1-to-5 score by a probability and call the result money: "4 × 50% = 2" is a number with no unit. > **Exercise:** Danylo rescores his risk: "Because the contractor works for two other clients, his checkout release may come late." **Possible** on the scale, and the impact is **10 working days** lost. What is the exposure? **Alex Tutor:** Now Hanna's money risk. Work out its exposure. > **Exercise:** Ad prices may rise in the January exam season. On the written scale this is **likely** (80 %), and the impact is 30,000 UAH of extra spend. What is the exposure, in UAH? ## The rare risk that sinks everything **Hanna:** One from me. Our payment provider may hold the account while it reviews a new product line. Rare, but then nobody buys any package, physics or English, for weeks. **Sofia:** Rare is 5%, times 30 days: 1.5 days. That's the bottom of the list. **Alex Tutor:** And that's the trap. Exposure is an average over many imagined projects; you run only one. If this happens, February is gone, and no average helps. **Alex Tutor:** So rank by exposure, then ask one more question of every row: "If this happens, can we still open, or still reach the result?" Any "no" stays on the short list, whatever its exposure. > **Exercise:** Hanna adds a risk: the payment provider may hold Klasna's account while it reviews a new product line. It is rare (5 %), with an impact of 30 days, and if it happens nobody can buy any package, physics or English, for weeks. **True or false:** the provider hold has the smallest exposure in the register (1.5 days), so it can be dropped from the short list. ## Owner, trigger, next action **Vira:** My review risk: who owns it? Me? **Alex Tutor:** The **risk owner** is the person best placed to notice it starting and act. For your review, that's you. The owner doesn't fix everything alone; nobody else waits for someone to notice. **Alex Tutor:** Then a **risk trigger**: an early sign with a date and a number. "Keep an eye on it" isn't one. "Fewer than 9 of 12 topics reviewed by 8 December" is. **Sofia:** And the next action is what we do this week, before the trigger fires? **Alex Tutor:** Yes, one line: "Vira sends topics 1 to 6 to two tutors for a parallel read by Friday." > **Exercise:** Match each register column to its entry for the risk "the contractor's release comes late". **Alex Tutor:** Which of these would actually warn you in time? > **Exercise:** Which is a usable trigger for the risk that Vira's review slips past 15 December? ## Short, and read every week **Leo:** Good. Now how do I keep it from becoming another forty-line list in a month? **Alex Tutor:** Keep it short: ten or so live risks. Review it for fifteen minutes each week, inside the Wednesday status: what fired, what to close, what is new. **Alex Tutor:** A risk whose date has passed gets closed. A risk that happened becomes an issue. Each status names the top three risks by name, not "risks: green". **Danylo:** Fifteen minutes I can do. A monthly risk workshop, I can't. > **Exercise:** Which habits keep the register in use? Select all that apply. **Alex Tutor:** Last: what does the status say about risks? > **Exercise:** What should the weekly status say about risks? ## Your turn: one row **Leo:** Add the evening-slots risk from last time. One row, every column, so I can read it in ten seconds. **Alex Tutor:** Statement as cause, event and consequence; probability from the scale; impact in days or money with its unit; one owner; a trigger with a date and a number; this week's action. **Vira:** Roman knows the tutors' timetables better than anyone. **Sofia:** Then the owner is Roman, and the trigger comes from his slot count. > **Exercise:** Write **one register row** for the risk that evening slots fill up in February: statement, probability, impact (days or money, with the unit), owner, trigger, next action. What you know: tutor candidates teach at school by day, so they are free only in the evenings and at weekends, and in February most families also want evening slots; Roman, who runs tutor operations, knows the tutors' timetables and collects confirmed weekly slots by 10 January. The probability scale: rare 5 %, unlikely 20 %, possible 50 %, likely 80 %. > **Key points** > > - One row per risk: statement, probability, impact, owner, trigger, next action. > - **Probability** from a written scale: rare 5%, unlikely 20%, possible 50%, likely 80%. > - **Impact** in days or money, defined at the top of the register. No 1-to-5 scores turned into money. > - **Exposure** = probability × impact, compared only within one unit: 50% × 7 days = 3.5 days. > - A rare risk that would sink the opening or the result stays on the list whatever its exposure. > - Keep about ten live risks and review them weekly inside the written status. **Alex Tutor:** Next: what to do about each risk, how to find the ones nobody mentioned, and how to build quality in. - Previous lesson: [Risk, issue, assumption or dependency?](https://productovi.com/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy/what-is-a-risk.md) - Next lesson: [Risk responses, the pre-mortem and built-in quality](https://productovi.com/courses/project-management-without-bureaucracy/responses-premortem-quality.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.