Managing Risk Without Creating Fear
How do you manage risk without creating fear?
The calm way to lead complex projects
Mention risk management in a project meeting and you can almost hear the shoulders tightening. Someone pictures a spreadsheet. Someone else starts thinking about everything that could go wrong. And someone quietly hopes this won’t mean another meeting.
Fair enough. But a useful conversation about risk should leave people clearer about the work ahead, including what needs attention and who is doing something about it.
Whether you’re introducing a new system, coordinating a community initiative or delivering a project across several organisations in Central Otago or Wānaka, there will be unknowns.
Recognising them early gives you time to make decisions before the options become more difficult or expensive.
Managing risk without creating fear... here we go.
How do you manage project risk
You manage project risk by identifying what could affect delivery, assessing how likely it is and what the consequences would be, then agreeing who will respond and how. Review those risks as the work progresses, because the picture will change.
I like to start with the questions people are sometimes reluctant to ask. Does the team have enough time? Has anyone confirmed that date? Who makes the decision if we can’t agree?
Asking early gives people a chance to do something useful with the answer. It also makes it easier to raise concerns later, when the project is underway and everyone is busy.
Be clear about what success looks like
Before you can assess what might threaten a project, you need to agree on what you’re trying to achieve.
Is the opening date fixed?
Is the budget capped?
Who will use the new service, and who will look after it once the project team steps away?
If people have different answers, spend some time there. A team can be working very hard towards several slightly different versions of success.
Make the risk specific enough to act on
“Communication” is a topic.
“The partner organisation may not receive the information it needs to approve the next stage” is a risk you can discuss and assign to someone.
Describe what might happen and what it would affect. For example, if a launch depends on one person’s specialist knowledge, their absence could delay testing and push back the launch date.
That gives you a useful starting point. You could document the process, involve another person or check how much flexibility exists in the schedule. It also helps to separate a risk, which might happen, from an issue that has already happened and needs dealing with now.
What is risk mitigation in project management
Risk mitigation means taking action to reduce the likelihood of a risk occurring, its impact if it does occur, or both. A contingency is the response you prepare in case it happens anyway.
Say a community project in Wānaka needs input from a contributor whose availability hasn’t been confirmed. You might bring their review forward to reduce the chance of a delay. You could also agree on a suitable deputy in case they become unavailable.
Someone needs to own those actions, with a date for confirming the arrangements. If that date passes without an answer, the project lead needs to know what decision is required and who can make it.
“Keep an eye on it” tends to leave rather a lot to interpretation.
How do you manage risk in complex projects
In complex projects, look at how the different teams, decisions and deadlines depend on each other. Give risks clear owners, agree when concerns need to be raised and review the overall picture regularly.
One team might be waiting for information that another believes it has already sent. An approval might sit with a group that meets next month, while the delivery date remains unchanged. Everyone can be doing their individual job well and the project can still get stuck between them.
For work involving several organisations across Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes, it helps to map those connections. Check what each part of the project depends on, who can approve changes and how quickly decisions need to be made.
Use enough structure to support the work
A small internal project may need a short shared list of risks and actions. A larger programme may need a formal risk register and regular reports to its governance group. Match the detail to the work, then keep it current.
In project management, we work on a “no surprises” basis. The people we deliver for or report to should never be caught off guard by a missed deadline, or by something landing out of nowhere that threatens to derail the work.
That means we’re always watching, tracking and sensing risk, often before it has developed into a risk we need to act on. We flag things early and let people know something is “on watch”. If it does become a problem, or a deadline has to shift, they won’t be happy, but they’ve had a heads-up. They’re more receptive and much more ready to help find a way through.
We also test for the usual suspects that tend to become risks. That works at any scale, from the short shared list to the formal register. It gives us a way to check familiar trouble spots as the work progresses.
Assess both likelihood and impact so the team can focus its effort. A frequent inconvenience may need less attention than an unlikely event with serious consequences.
Check whether your response is affordable and whether the remaining risk is acceptable to the person authorised to make that decision.
A register is useful when people refer to it, act on it and update it. If it only appears when someone asks for a report, it is probably due for a rethink.
Make it easy to raise a concern
You can have a carefully maintained risk register and still miss the concern someone hasn’t felt able to raise. They might worry about sounding negative, especially if a deadline has already been promised. Or they may have noticed that the last person to raise a problem ended up responsible for fixing all of it.
How you respond matters. “Thanks for raising it. What do we know, and what needs to happen next?” gives you somewhere useful to begin. You can ask direct questions and hold people accountable while still making it safe to tell you the awkward thing.
Being calm also means being clear when a concern is serious. Explain the potential consequences, the options available and when a decision is needed. People shouldn’t have to guess how urgent something is.
How do you prevent project failure
You reduce the likelihood of project failure by agreeing on clear outcomes, planning around the resources available and responding when circumstances change. No approach can guarantee success, but these habits give you a better chance of spotting trouble while there is still time to act.
Pay attention when actions repeatedly carry over, new requests arrive without changes to time or budget, or important decisions have no clear owner. If progress reports sound reassuring but nobody can explain what is complete, ask a few more questions.
The response might be a clearer responsibility, additional support or a change to the scope. Sometimes a project needs to pause while a bigger decision is made. That can be uncomfortable when people have already invested time and money, but continuing without addressing the problem can make it harder to resolve.
Check the assumptions before the summer break
November is a useful time to look at what your project is relying on over the next few months. Who will be available during the holidays? Which approvals need to happen before people finish? What are you expecting to restart in January, and has someone confirmed that it can?
For a project in Wānaka, Cromwell, Alexandra or elsewhere in Central Otago, a short conversation now can help the team plan around those gaps.
Try asking, “What are we relying on that we haven’t actually confirmed?” Then give people time to answer.
There may be something quite straightforward you can sort out before everyone heads away.
Project management support in Central Otago and Wānaka
I’m Pip Rudhall Hyett, based in Cromwell and working with businesses, organisations and community groups across Central Otago, Wānaka and the wider Queenstown Lakes area.
If you’d like help working through the risks in your project, we can start with a conversation. A Clarity Consult gives you space to talk through the challenge.
Plan It helps you work out the steps, responsibilities and risks before you get underway. Run It provides hands-on support to lead the project through.
You’re welcome to get in touch while things are still a bit untidy. We can work through them together.
Email pip@rudhallhyett.co.nz or explore more of what we offer on the rest of the website: www.rudhallhyett.co.nz.
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