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How is a Risk Register different for Program from a Project?

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Saby Waraich CIO | CISO| Clackamas Community College Or, United States
Program consists of different projects. As a Program Manager, how do you handle risks for various projects in a Program. What are some of the best practices? Do you have any template to share?
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Kiron Bondale Retired | Mentor| Retired Welland, Ontario, Canada
Saby -

Ideally you have a PMIS of some kind so you are not maintaining information in multiple places. That way, risks are flagged as being of program-significance or not and you can filter based on that.

If not, then I'd suggest asking the PMs within the component projects to add "program significant?" as a column in their individual (standard template across all, please!) risk registers to simplify consolidation.

You should also consider creating a risk relationship graph (a digraph might be one way to do this) to show the linkages between the risks in different projects across the program.

It also makes sense to have specific risks identified and managed at the program level which are not specific to a given component project...

Kiron
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1 reply by Saby Waraich
Feb 21, 2018 9:13 PM
Saby Waraich
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Thanks Kiron.
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Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD Senior Project Manager| Infosys Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Yes, simply flagged as program or project risks as Kiron mentioned.
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Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I fully agree with Kiron too, that's what we do.
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Najam Mumtaz Retired Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Kiron is absolutely spot on. Risks that impact overall program are flagged in every project's risk register, these risks and other risks identified at program level are usually but not limited to risks associated with the issues of integration, interactions, and inter dependencies of sub projects.
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Clark Edwards Livonia, Mi, United States
Does you organization have a PMO ? Before I answer in detail I would like to assess HOW your organization is structured and operates within a Program Structure. No quick and cute answers from me.
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1 reply by Saby Waraich
Feb 21, 2018 9:17 PM
Saby Waraich
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Absolutely Clark. My organization has a Project Management Office. The PMO is responsible for delivering IT projects to internal bureaus and external customers. PMO has a standard Project Lifecycle methodology followed by all PMs.
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Saby Waraich CIO | CISO| Clackamas Community College Or, United States
Feb 21, 2018 2:09 PM
Replying to Kiron Bondale
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Saby -

Ideally you have a PMIS of some kind so you are not maintaining information in multiple places. That way, risks are flagged as being of program-significance or not and you can filter based on that.

If not, then I'd suggest asking the PMs within the component projects to add "program significant?" as a column in their individual (standard template across all, please!) risk registers to simplify consolidation.

You should also consider creating a risk relationship graph (a digraph might be one way to do this) to show the linkages between the risks in different projects across the program.

It also makes sense to have specific risks identified and managed at the program level which are not specific to a given component project...

Kiron
Thanks Kiron.
avatar
Saby Waraich CIO | CISO| Clackamas Community College Or, United States
Feb 21, 2018 9:09 PM
Replying to Clark Edwards
...
Does you organization have a PMO ? Before I answer in detail I would like to assess HOW your organization is structured and operates within a Program Structure. No quick and cute answers from me.
Absolutely Clark. My organization has a Project Management Office. The PMO is responsible for delivering IT projects to internal bureaus and external customers. PMO has a standard Project Lifecycle methodology followed by all PMs.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
In my case, there is no difference about the risk register except in case of program the reference to the project where the risk belongs to is included. On the other side, when you are in the project, we have a guide to decide if the risk must have visibility at program level.

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