Schedule Risk Management - Construction Project Scheduling and Control - page 382

both in the development of the baseline schedule and in creating the schedule updates.
This should include determining how the risk management will be carried out as well
as developing a master risk register that would serve to facilitate risk identification.
The risk management plan development will serve to encourage the project manage-
ment team to recognize that managing risk is a formal procedure, with a regimented
process that should be used as the approach to a standardized plan. This risk manage-
ment process should be incorporated into the procedures for design and development
of the baseline schedule as well as the procedures for each schedule update.
It is important for any company or organization to have a level of risk management
incorporated into its work culture. A good way to initiate the use of risk management is
through a separate brainstorming session that is designed to develop the master risk
register. Development of this master risk register will improve the efficiency of risk
identification and should also include a storage place for capturing historical informa-
tion and lessons learned from the experience of all of the company's project teams.
The organization of the master risk register is important, since it will help cat-
egorize and isolate historical risks that have been encountered on previous projects,
many of which might still be potential risks for the next project. The development
of this master risk register could simply include capturing categories, leading to the
development of a more formal structure, such as a risk breakdown structure (RBS), as
recommended by PMI. As noted in the Project Management Body of Knowledge ,“the
RBS is a hierarchically organized depiction of the identified project risks arranged by
risk category and subcategory that identifies the various areas and causes of potential
risks” (PMI, 2013). The RBS example shows the first level of the structure containing
the categories “technical,” “external,” “organizational,” and “project management,”
with each category subdivided into subcategories, such as technology, subcontractors,
resources, and communication. Categories might be arranged by project type, even
to the point of maintaining separate master risk registers for each project type (e.g.,
transportation projects and facility projects), which helps maintain relevance in the
register. Some typical examples of useful categories might include plans and specifica-
tions, quality control, contractors and subcontractors, owner influences, unforeseen
conditions, weather, cost and schedule constraints, change management, claims and
disputes, project management, safety, political and cultural risks.
Subcategories such as whether a constructability review was performed are partic-
ularly important. If it was performed, the plans probably provide much better direction
for construction and will result in fewer requests for information that could turn into
change orders. The reputation of the designer has an impact on the quality of the
drawings, which will affect change orders as well. Physical quality control issues, such
as the distance from the nearest concrete batch plant to the project, are important to
review for possible risk issues. The author was involved in a large bridge project that
was constructed in a remote location with a local batch plant that did not provide the
capacity to supply the project. This raised the risk of performance in high concrete
placement periods, such as the counterweight fill for the bascule equipment, and as a
result of the risk management effort, the project management team was able to look
into setting up a batch plant on-site. Limited suppliers for a piece of highly technical