Risk Register Nobody Reads
At kickoff for a 20-month civic building, the PM builds a risk register with 18 entries, scored by probability and impact. It is reviewed once, filed, and not revisited for 9 months. In month 10, a geotechnical report reveals poorer soils than the original borings suggested, driving a foundation redesign and an estimated 7-week delay and $400k cost increase. The register, it turns out, listed 'unexpected soil conditions' at medium probability and high impact, with a mitigation note reading 'allow contingency.' No contingency was ever funded; the fee was negotiated to the bone to win the job. The client is now surprised and angry, saying no one warned them. The contractor is threatening a delay claim.
1. Evaluate the risk-management process failure. Where exactly did it break down, and what should have happened differently?
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The register existed but risk management did not. It failed at four points:
- Identification without ownership. An entry with no named owner and no trigger is a wish, not a risk. 'Unexpected soil conditions' needed an owner, a monitoring trigger (geotech review milestone), and a response plan.
- Mitigation that was never executed. 'Allow contingency' is not a mitigation; it is a transfer of the problem to a future argument. The response should have been either funded contingency or a defined action - additional borings before design freeze, a geotech allowance in the contract, or a soil-risk clause.
- No recurring review. A register reviewed once is a snapshot. Monthly review would have surfaced the risk before month 10 and let the team act while options remained.
- No client communication. The client's surprise is the PM's failure. High-impact risks the client is carrying must be disclosed early and in writing, with the response options and costs, so the client owns the decision to accept the risk.
The fee being 'negotiated to the bone' is precisely why the risk needed a funded response or an explicit, documented client acceptance - not silence.
2. You are in month 10 with the problem now real. Outline your response plan across cost, schedule, and the client and contractor relationships.
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Contain and quantify first. Get the geotech firm to characterize the extent, and have structural price the redesign and the foundation options (over-excavation, deep foundations, ground improvement). Get a range, not a point estimate, before talking numbers externally.
Cost. Identify funding: owner contingency if the contract has one, a change order, or value-engineering offsets elsewhere. Present options with cost and schedule trade-offs rather than a single demand.
Schedule. Model the 7-week impact against the critical path. Explore recovery: overlapping redesign with early foundation packages, or a phased foundation permit. Give the client a revised date with the recovery options priced.
Client. Meet in person, not by email. Acknowledge the risk was identified and not communicated - own that specifically - then present the situation, options, and recommendation. Do not blame the geotech or the fee negotiation.
Contractor. Engage early and openly. Share the geotech findings and the recovery plan, document notices per the contract, and negotiate the delay impact before positions harden. Early transparency usually costs less than a contested claim.
Process fix now. Re-activate the register with owners, triggers, and a monthly review, and add the newly revealed risks.