Risk Monitoring, Review, Communication and Consultation
Domain 5 - Risk monitoring, review, communication and consultation
This domain tests the two transversal activities: the loop that keeps the process honest and the dialogue that keeps it relevant.
Core rules
- Monitoring is continuous checking and observation; review is periodic examination of whether the process, criteria and framework remain suitable and effective. Both are needed - monitoring data without review can confirm a stale assumption.
- Monitor risk levels against tolerance, treatment progress, control effectiveness, indicators, incidents and near misses, and changes in internal and external context. A breached key risk indicator should reopen the assessment, not merely trigger an email.
- Review must confirm that risk criteria and scales still reflect the objectives; stale criteria silently corrupt evaluation.
- Communication promotes awareness and understanding; consultation seeks informed views and feeds them into decisions. Both are two-way, planned, timed, and matched to stakeholder needs, confidentiality and legal requirements.
- Reviews need suitable independence so those who own a risk are not the sole judges of whether it is controlled.
Worked example
A quarterly review finds a delivery-delay key risk indicator in breach for two consecutive periods. Correct sequence: reassess the risk with current data, consult the operations and customer-facing teams who hold the evidence, re-evaluate against the unchanged criteria, adjust the treatment plan, record the decision and owner, then communicate the outcome to the board and affected customers. Consultation supplies input; it is not a vote and does not move accountability away from the risk owner.
Traps that cost marks
- Monitoring treatment milestones only, never the framework or the criteria.
- Treating communication as a one-way email at project close.
- Running a review that produces no documented changes, decisions or owners.
- Using consultation to seek approval, so challenge is discouraged and the record shows consensus that never existed.