A project RAID Log, really?
https://wahab.eu/r/raidlog
I have participated in many projects where many of the senior stakeholders have advised that a RAID log is key to a project. I have also seen many job adverts advising that candidates must know how to use a RAID log. In my mind, my first thoughts about the job promoter or stakeholder is, do you really know what a RAID log is.
So lets get you on the same page with me for definitions. What does RAID stand for:
- R is for Risks. This is an event that may happen but there is time to mitigate this concern.
- A is for Actions. This is a list of activities that need to be undertaken.
- I is for Issues. An issue is a live problem impacting the project that needs to be managed
- D is for Dependency. Here we try and define which activities need to happen before a next activity can take place (eg business case approval BEFORE project kick off). This is directly related to Risk Management.
- NOTE: Some people also define D as a Decision. They track decisions that have been made. I do not use this interpretation.
So what do I do with a RAID log. Well for sure, I do not have one big log. That would be disastrous (in my opinion). Instead, I have the following. I have one excel workbook with 3 spreadsheets. One spreadsheet for risks, one for Issues and one for Dependencies. I rarely look at the Dependency log. Whats next?
a) List all the Risks in one spreadsheet. Please see my post on Risk Workshops for more details. Ensure you have all the risks listed in order of greatest risk down to least risk.
b) List all the Issues in order of greatest impact down to least impact.
c) Log the Dependencies. If possible in order of the earliest dependent activity to the later. The project manager actually needs to build this dependency in to their project plan. In this way, they can automatically gauge the impact of a delay between activities.
d) Actions should be held in your project plan (but you should only be showing the activities that need to be worked on over the next two weeks).
Now this is done, do I still have a RAID log? Absolutely. Its just that its structured practically. And now we can start using these RAID components in our status meeting and for stakeholder reporting. So lets imagine we are sitting with our project core team and we only have 1 hour. Lets proceed:
a) Make it clear that the resolution to the Issue and Risk is NOT to be discussed in the meeting. The resolution activities need to happen outside.
b) Review the Issue log first. You should only discuss the top 10 items. The purpose of the discussion is to determine, AS OF THIS MEETING, if there has been any progress. The update must be from the project member owning the Issue. They can request the PM to escalate as needed. Where an individual suggests they could not get in contact with a key person, its probably because they were too busy on another task with a higher priority. It is the project managers responsibility to understand the root cause of limited progress on an Issue. Try not to take more than 25 minutes with the Issue log.
c) Review the Risk log next. You should only need about 10 - 15 minutes. Just discuss the top 10 risks. Here, any dependency activities, that may be at risk, should already have been added to the risk log.
d) Actions. The activities that need to be undertaken over the next two weeks should be reviewed by the team. Technically, there should not be too many to review. You need about 15 minutes. Its important to go through the actions, so that all the project team are aware of what actions will be executed over this coming period. They may have some input and this is the time to do it.
e) You now have 5 minutes remaining for any other points or business (eg holidays, absences, etc).
The project manager has to be very disciplined to keep to the time and to prevent the Issue or Risk being "workshopped" in the meeting. It happens so many times. You have some outspoken, dominant or senior individuals who want to discuss one particular point. The project manager needs to ensure that particular items are discussed outside of the status meeting.
I hope this helps. I will shortly provide a post on running and managing a Change Forum.
https://wahab.eu/r/raidlog