24 C The Risk Burn Down Chart

A spreadsheet similar to the risk register can be developed to manage risks and manage the budgets associated with risk management on large and long duration projects. It isn’t possible to avoid all arbitrariness in forecasting the risk management budget but it is possible to provide good management visibility into the process. One approach is as follows: (This description is a bit tedious so look ahead at figures 10 and 11. If the process is obvious to you from the figures skip the text. If not then just wade through the description. It may help to drawn out the spreadsheet as you read the description.)

•           Develop a spreadsheet with time, e.g. months, in the first column and the known risks in the first row of adjoining columns. The planned mitigation expense estimate as a function of time for each risk is added in the rows for each known risk. Summing the entries in each row across columns results in the estimated mitigation expense for all risk mitigation activities for that time period. As new risks are identified they are added in the first row of new columns and mitigation budgets are added in appropriate time rows in the new columns.

•           Develop a second spreadsheet with the following columns

o          Time line, e.g. month number from beginning of the project or actual dates

o          Planned Mitigation Expense per time period to be spent on risk mitigation for known risks, i.e. the cumulative value of the row for that time period from the first spreadsheet

o          Cumulative Planned Mitigation Expenses, i.e. the cumulative cost estimates for mitigation activities for the risks known at the time the plan is developed.

•           Recognize that as the project progresses new risks will appear as decisions are made and additional risk management budget is needed to mitigate these new risks. Therefore add the following columns to the spreadsheet.

o          Adjusted Cumulative Mitigation Budget; the planned expenses plus an adjustment, e.g. an arbitrary percentage, to mitigate unknown risks that will arise during the project.

o          Actual Mitigation Expenses for each time period.

o          Cumulative Actual Mitigation Expense

It may be helpful at this point to show a chart resulting from an example of the process described so far. Figure 10 is a chart for a large project in which the mitigation budget is nearly $40 million dollars. In this example the initially identified risks were planned to be mitigated with just over $30 million. The arbitrary adjustments for unknown risks increased the budget to nearly $40 million and the actual expenses at the end of a year were just below the adjusted budget. For situations where the budget for risk mitigation is released incrementally or for a large project that continues for several more years having data such as this chart provides the project managers sound arguments to defend their requests for risk mitigation budgets.

  Figure 10 An example of risk mitigation budget and expense resulting from the example approach.

The mitigation budget and expense are only half of the story. Risk is the rest of the story so now let’s return to the example approach:

•           At the beginning of a project sum up the expected values of all risks on the risk register. This cumulative risk value is the amount of over budget expense that is likely if initially known risks are not mitigated before they impact the project. Add a column to the second spreadsheet for this Cumulative Risk Value before Mitigation.

•           Add a risk value adjustment factor for each time period to cover unknown risks that will arise and add a new column to the second spreadsheet for the Adjusted Cumulative Risk Value before Mitigation. These “adjusted” values represent the best estimate of how both identified and new risks will be mitigated throughout the project

•           As the project continues, new risks are added and all risks are mitigated so that a Cumulative Risk Value after Mitigation can be added to the spreadsheet. Now there is sufficient data to construct a Risk Burn Down Chart which shows how the risk value is reduced over time by the risk mitigation work.

An example of a risk burn down chart is shown in figure 11. In this example the adjusted and actual cumulative risk values track each other reasonably well. If the manager of this project needed additional risk management funding in the middle of the project then showing this chart to the funding authority would provide excellent justification for the needed funds. If the planned and actual risk mitigation expenses also tracked each other well, as in the example shown in figure 10, then the funding authority should have good confidence in the management team.

 Figure 11 An example risk burn down chart for a large project with high initial risk.

The charts resulting from the approach outlined above are useful for showing those responsible for funding projects the most likely project expense if risk mitigation is effectively conducted and the likely budget impacts if risks are not proactively mitigated. In the example shown the likely budget impact if risks are not mitigated is over $400 million. This budget impact is reduced to about $23 million by an expenditure of about $38 million for a total impact of about $63 million compared to over $400 million.

The percentage adjustments risks that will be identified during a project are necessarily arbitrary but can be adjusted during the project if the actual expected risk value line deviates substantially from the adjusted expected value line.

In summary, spending a small amount of money in proactively mitigating risks is far better than waiting until the undesirable event occurs and then having to spend a large amount of money fixing the consequences. Remember that risk management is proactive (problem prevention) and not reactive. Also risk management is NOT an action item list for current problems. Finally, risk management is an on-going activity. Do not prepare risk summary grids or risk registers and then put them in a file as though that completes the risk management process, a mistake inexperienced managers make too often.

Exercise

1. Spend some quiet time thinking about what the worst possible thing your competitors could do that would negatively impact your organization in the short and long terms. If you have already done this and have mitigation plans in place or on the shelf you are a mature risk manager. If not, you have some homework to do.

2. Handling anything your competitors do or responding to the loss of your most important customer are the easy ones. Now imagine that your organization is stable, progressing well on improving effectiveness, trust in management is growing, enthusiasm is growing and then your superiors tell you to lay off 10% of your people in order to increase enterprise profits for the year. You know this is going to demoralize the organization for some time and erode trust in the benefits of working to improve the organization. How do you respond to your people and to your superiors? There is no easy answer to this question but in today’s environment it is not an unlikely occurrence and you should be prepared for it.

2. Does your organization have a standard risk management process in place? If so then go on the next lecture. If not then think through a plan to put a standard process in place and train workers to use it. This can be a commercial process or a process you or your workers develop. You can implement it via formal training or on an incremental basis. The important thing is having a process and using it religiously.

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