Risk Connections

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Risk Management   ProjectsAtWork  

Partnerships are the key to successful risk management that goes beyond the project level. That means building processes that are consistent from project to program to portfolio. It also requires fostering open communication lines throughout the organization, from junior team members to senior executives.

In the previous installment of this series (“A Risk Management Partnership”) we discussed the importance of partnerships in effective organizational risk management. It requires alignment across all levels of execution — project, programs, portfolios and the PMO — and depends upon consistent reporting and approval processes as well as a culture that fosters communication among team members, executives and stakeholders.

Let’s focus now on how to build and maintain those partnerships, starting with the process partnership. Process partnerships are ensure that risk management (or any other set of processes) can be applied consistently up and down the organization. A risk that is identified at the portfolio level needs to be able to be passed to the project level for day-to-day management; risks identified at the project level need to be understood and analyzed at the portfolio level. This means that the fundamental risk processes at all levels of the organization should be consistent. 

Consider the example of front-line …

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