Seven Components to a Risk Management Plan
The Risk Management Plan describes how you will define and manage risk on the project. This document does not actually describe the risks and the responses. This document defines the process and techniques you will use to define the risks and the responses. The information in this plan includes:
- Roles and responsibilities. This section describes the leading and supporting roles in the risk management process. The project manager typically has overall responsibility for risk management, unless the team is large enough that this role can be delegated to another team member – perhaps a specialist. Third-party risk management teams may also be able to perform more independent, unbiased risk analyses of project than those from the sponsoring project team.
- Budgeting. Discuss your budget for risk management for the project. Since you may not know enough to request budget for risk management you can also describe the process that you will use to determine a risk management budget estimate.
- Timing. Defines when the initial risk assessment will be performed, as well as how often the risk management process will be conducted throughout the project life cycle. Results should be developed early enough to affect decisions.
- Scoring and interpretation. You should define risk scoring and interpretation methods appropriate for the type of the qualitative and quantitative risk analysis being performed. Methods and scoring must be determined in advance to ensure consistency.
- Thresholds. The threshold level is how you determine which risks are important enough to act upon. The project manager, client, and sponsor may have a different risk threshold. The acceptable threshold forms the target against which the project team will analyze risks.
- Communication. Describe how the information on risk will be documented and communicated. This includes the risks themselves, the risk responses and the risk status.
- Tracking and Auditing. Document how all facets of risk activities will be recorded for the benefit of the current project, future needs, and lessons learned. Also describe if and how risk processes will be audited.
Other sections can be added to the Risk Management Plan as needed.
