Project Controls – Risk Assessment

Brief History: Planning and Management

Until 1900, civil engineering projects were generally managed by creative architects, engineers, and master builders themselves, for example, Vitruvius (first century BC), Christopher Wren (1632–1723), Thomas Telford (1757–1834) and Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859). In the 1950s, organizations started to systematically apply project management tools and techniques to complex engineering projects.

As a discipline, project management developed from several fields of application including civil construction, engineering, and heavy defense activity. Two forefathers of project management are Henry Gantt, called the father of planning and control techniques, who is famous for his use of the Gantt Chart as a project management tool (alternatively Harmonogram first proposed by Karol Adamiecki); and Henri Fayol for his creation of the five management functions that form the foundation of the body of knowledge associated with project and program management. Both Gantt and Fayol were students of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s theories of scientific management. His work is the forerunner to modern project management tools including Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and resource allocation.

What is Risk Assessment?

Risk Assessment is determining and foreseeing the future events that may negatively impact individuals, assets, resources and/or the environment that could have been taken preventive action by qualitative and quantitative strategy to help eliminate the potential risk-related consequences.

This is where Oracle Primavera can help you.

What is Oracle Primavera P6 Professional?

Primavera P6 Professional is a Windows-based project management application that helps you to create, organize, track enterprise-wide data on project planning; project scheduling;, resource management; and cost management.  Project controls could be done with its tools for user control and data security and optimized for very large projects.

To learn about Primavera P6 scheduling courses offered by Leopard Project Controls, please click here.

5 Steps in Risk Assessment

• Identify the risk, i.e. what may cause endangerment

Determining the hazard may be easy but the question is, how could  we prevent it from happening?  Are there several ways to avoid it?  What if we couldn’t avoid it?  What precautions are we going to do to minimize it?  There comes the importance of knowing the risk itself so that you’ll know how to take action.

• Determine who may be affected by this risk

Who are affected by these problems?  Does their work could be affected by those risks?  Could the project be delayed?  Who is capable enough to handle this risk?

• Assess the risk and take action

What are the procedures that help me assess this risk?  Who could help to prevent these problems from occurring?  What can we do to limit the risk-potential consequences?  Sit down, analyze and talk with your team about it.

• Gather data

Data gathered are being stored and discussed with the team and in the future to compare such risks for assessment and review.

• Review and conclude

You need to decide what procedures you are going to do with those risks.  Consult third party organizations that are expert in this kind of field (Leopard Project Controls).