
Understanding and prioritizing risks is a crucial step in the risk management process. This involves identifying potential risks and categorizing them based on their likelihood and impact.
To effectively prioritize risks, organizations should consider factors such as the likelihood of a risk occurring, its potential impact on the business, and the likelihood of a risk being mitigated. The likelihood and impact of a risk are often assessed using a risk matrix.
The risk matrix helps to identify and prioritize risks based on their level of severity. It categorizes risks into four quadrants: high, medium, low, and very low. Risks in the high quadrant should be given top priority, while those in the very low quadrant can be considered as having a low priority.
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Identify Risks
Identifying risks is a crucial step in the risk management process. To start, you need to examine the factors in your organization and environment that are potentially dangerous, such as regulatory, legal, environmental, market risks, and more.
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Consider creating a risk log or risk register that serves as an ongoing database of each project's potential risks. This will help you and your team manage current risks and serve as a reference for past projects.
There are many methods for risk identification, including consulting with industry experts, utilizing smart software for audits, tapping into the experiences of your team members, and conducting group brainstorming sessions. Some common types of risks include hazard risks, such as accidents or natural disasters, strategic risks, like emerging competitors, financial risks, such as economic downturns, and operational risks, including supplier issues and employee turnover.
Here are the four key categories of risks to consider:
- Hazard risks (e.g. accidents, fires, natural disasters)
- Strategic risks (e.g. emerging competitors, negative viral feedback)
- Financial risks (e.g. economic downturns)
- Operational risks (e.g. supplier issues, employee turnover)
Identify Your Risks
Identifying risks is a crucial step in any risk management process. It involves examining the factors in your organization and environment that are potentially dangerous. Consider creating a risk log or risk register that serves as an ongoing database of each project's potential risks.
To start a risk assessment, examine the factors in your organization and environment, including regulatory, legal, environmental, market risks, and so on. Identify as many of these risk factors as possible. Anything that can harm your organization should be on your radar.
You can leverage the collective knowledge and experience of your entire team to identify risks. Ask everyone to identify risks they've either experienced before or may have additional insight about. This process fosters communication and encourages cross-functional learning.
Risks can be broadly classified into four key categories: hazard risks, such as accidents, fires, or natural disasters; strategic risks, like emerging competitors or negative viral feedback; financial risks, such as economic downturns; and operational risks, including supplier issues and employee turnover.
Here are some common methods for risk identification:
- Consulting with industry experts
- Utilizing smart software for audits
- Tapping into the experiences of your team members to gather their insights on observed or encountered risks
- Conducting group brainstorming sessions
Remember to look around your workplace and think about what may cause harm (these are called hazards). Think about how people work and how plant and equipment are used, what chemicals and substances are used, what safe or unsafe work practices exist, and the general state of your premises.
Review Controls
Reviewing the controls you've put in place is a crucial step in managing risks. This involves checking if they're still effective and making any necessary changes.
You should review the controls if they may no longer be effective, or if there have been changes in the workplace that could lead to new risks. This could be due to changes in materials, machinery, or processes.
It's also important to review the controls if your workers have spotted any problems or if there have been any accidents or near misses. This shows that you value their input and are committed to maintaining a safe working environment.
To review the controls, consider the following:
- Redesigning the job or process
- Replacing materials, machinery, or equipment
- Organising work to reduce exposure to hazards
- Identifying and implementing practical measures to work safely
- Providing personal protective equipment and ensuring workers wear it
Remember to update your risk assessment record with any changes you make.
Insurance Company Maturity Model
The Risk and Insurance Management Company's Risk Maturity Model is a valuable tool for businesses to assess their risk management activities.
The RMM framework lists seven core attributes of a risk management program, including assessing each on a scale from nonexistent to leading.
An RMM risk management assessment provides a maturity score and practical suggestions to help organizations enhance their programs.
Companies can use the RMM to determine how well their risk management activities match best practices.
The RMM is an integrative framework of worldwide, cross-industry standards that enables businesses to compare themselves to other organizations.
By using the RMM, companies can reap the numerous advantages of maturity in their risk management programs.
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7 Response Strategies
If you know the importance of risk appetite, you'll want to practice the four Ts of hazard response: tolerate, treat, transfer, and terminate.
Risk response strategies are essential in managing risks effectively. To mitigate risks, you can reduce the probability of occurrence and/or the severity of impact.
There are four main strategies to consider: Accept, Mitigate/Enhance, Transfer/Share, and Avoid/Exploit. Each action begins with an action verb and has a clear purpose.
Here are the 7 Risk Response Strategies in detail:
Monitoring the progress of the treatment plan is the responsibility of the Risk Owner. They must report regularly to the Risk Manager, who must keep the Risk Register up to date.
What is Reasonably Practicable
Reasonably practicable is a key concept in risk management. You're not expected to eliminate all risks.
It's about balancing the level of risk against the measures needed to control it. This means considering the cost, time, and effort required to implement controls.
You need to do everything you can to protect people from harm, but you don't have to achieve perfection. The goal is to minimize risks as much as possible.
In practice, this means weighing up the benefits of a control against its drawbacks. You might need to choose between different options or find a compromise.
You can find more detailed guidance on controls relevant to your business, which can help you make informed decisions about what's reasonably practicable.
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Assess Risks
Assessing risks is a crucial step in the risk management process. It involves evaluating the likelihood of a risk occurring and its potential impact on your business.
To assess risks, you need to consider two key factors: the likelihood of occurrence and potential impact. There are two primary approaches to risk assessment: qualitative and quantitative assessment. Qualitative assessment focuses on addressing the question of how critical a risk is by examining the probability and impact of the risk.
The probability of occurrence is usually measured on a scale of 1 to 99%. For example, if the risk of a supplier failing to deliver a product by a certain date is 50%, this can be determined from feedback and analysis of the supplier's workload.
To assess the overall impact, you need to estimate the severity of each of the impacts defined at the project level. A scale is used to classify the different impacts and their severities, ensuring that the assessment of each risk or opportunity is standardized and reliable.
Here are the key steps in assessing risks:
- Identify who might be harmed and how
- Evaluate what you're already doing to control the risks
- Decide what further action you need to take to control the risks
- Determine who needs to carry out the action
- Establish a deadline for the action to be taken
By following these steps, you can effectively assess risks and prioritize your response accordingly. This will help you to minimize the impact of potential risks and ensure the success of your project.
Prioritizing
Prioritizing is a crucial step in the risk management process. It helps you understand your organization's total risk exposure by ranking and prioritizing each risk depending on its severity.
Risks that can cause catastrophic losses should be at the top of your priority list. On the other hand, risks that will lead to minor inconvenience should be a lower priority.
To prioritize risks, you need to factor in both their likelihood of happening and their potential effect on the project. This will give you a holistic view of the project and help you identify workable solutions for each risk.
A risk that may cause minor inconvenience without substantial disruption to business operations is assigned a lower priority. While one capable of bringing the entire business to a halt is given the highest priority.
By prioritizing risks, you can determine where to allocate more of your team's time and resources. This will help you formulate practical solutions to address each risk and ensure that your operations remain relatively unaffected during the risk mitigation phase.
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Treat Risks
Developing a risk treatment plan is crucial to eliminate or contain each risk as much as possible. This plan should be developed in collaboration with the respective experts of each field to which the risk belongs.
Your risk mitigation strategy should include avoiding the risk by stopping activities that cause it, reducing the risk by taking action to decrease the likelihood of an adverse event occurring, sharing the risk by taking out insurance or contractingually agreeing with other parties to share the potential recovery costs, or accepting the risk and being prepared with a contingency plan.
A good starting point is to work with your team to solve the threat or at least mitigate it, so the risk no longer threatens your organization.
Here are the 4 strategies for treating risks:
- Avoid the risk: stop activities that cause the risk.
- Reduce the risk: take action to reduce the likelihood of an adverse event occurring.
- Share the risk: take out insurance to cover the risk or contractually agree with other parties to share the potential recovery costs.
- Accept the risk: acknowledge that if the threat occurs, the organization will have to bear the consequences and be prepared with a contingency plan.
Using your available resources efficiently is crucial without derailing your daily operations.
Record and Review
The initial step in the risk management process is to identify and assess potential hazards in the workplace. This involves looking at the things that may cause harm, who might be harmed and how, and what you are doing to control the risks.
If you employ 5 or more people, you must record your significant findings, including the hazards, who might be harmed and how, and what you are doing to control the risks. To help you, there is a risk assessment template and examples available.
Don't rely purely on paperwork as your main priority should be to control the risks in practice. You should also review the controls you have put in place to make sure they are working. This includes reviewing them if they may no longer be effective, or if there are changes in the workplace that could lead to new risks.
You should also consider reviewing your controls if your workers have spotted any problems or there have been any accidents or near misses. Update your risk assessment record with any changes you make.
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Record Your Findings
Recording your findings is a crucial step in the process of record and review. If you employ 5 or more people, you must record your significant findings.
You'll need to identify the hazards that may cause harm, including who might be harmed and how. This information will help you determine what you need to do to control the risks.
To help you with this, you can use a risk assessment template. Don't rely solely on paperwork, though - your main priority should be to control the risks in practice.
Here's a list of the key things to include in your recorded findings:
- Hazards (things that may cause harm)
- Who might be harmed and how
- What you're doing to control the risks
Monitoring and Reporting
Monitoring and reporting are crucial steps in the record and review process. You must review the controls you have put in place to make sure they are working, especially if there have been changes in the workplace or your workers have spotted any problems.
Reviewing your risk assessment record is essential to update it with any changes you make. This ensures that your risk management plan stays up-to-date and effective.
To monitor and report on risks, you need a structure in place. This frequency will depend on the risk criticality, and it's essential to have appropriate forums for escalation and actioning on risk responses.
Developing a monitoring and reporting structure will help you stay on top of risks and opportunities. This includes governance cadence for monitoring and reporting on risks and opportunities, which should be defined by the Risk Manager in conjunction with the Project Manager.
You should also be proactive in tracking risks rather than reactive. This means maintaining constant vigilance and thorough investigation of any incidents to identify issues promptly and take action to safeguard your business.
Effective communication within your team and across different organizational units plays a vital role in risk monitoring. Consistently documenting, analyzing, and sharing the progress of your plan with all stakeholders is essential.
If you're managing this manually, you can enter periodic updates on the status of each risk into a document and circulate it via email to all involved parties. However, using risk management software can streamline this process, continuously monitoring the entire risk framework and providing real-time data through an intuitive dashboard.
Sources
- https://www.zengrc.com/blog/5-step-risk-management-process/
- https://www.migso-pcubed.com/blog/risk-management/four-step-risk-management-process/
- https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/risk-management-process
- https://neuroject.com/risk-management-2/
- https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/steps-needed-to-manage-risk.htm
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