The Risk Owner: A Critical Person to Successful Risk Management

Introduction

One of the Most Powerful and Underrated Stakeholders that will determine the success or failure of your Risk Management process in your project is the Risk Owner!

Note: the Risk Owner is not the Risk Champion or Facilitator. Also, the Risk Owner may be different from the Risk Action Owner. The Risk Action Owner is the one who implements the?Risks?response under the guidance of the risk owner.

In assigning a risk owner, ensure it has a definite personnel name or distinct role if the person is not yet onboard. Such distinct roles like Site A Project Engineer so that when the person comes on board, he/she can quickly own the risks.

Risk Owner's Roles

• Just as the name is, the Risk Owner owns the risks, he is responsible for everything about the risks assigned to him/her.
• He/she can determine the risk rating and can reassess or change the risk rating given during the risk workshop, especially in the case he/she was not present in the workshop.
• The Risk Owner defines the risk response plan or reviews and approves any response developed during the risk workshop.
• The Risk Owner is the one who ensures that the risk action owner implements the risk response.
• Also, the Risk Owner monitors the risks and reports the status both to the Project Manager and the Risk Champion/Manager.

Ensuring Risk Owners Are Effective During Risk Management

Seeing the criticality or importance of a risk owner in Risk Management, there are ways to ensure that risk owners are effective and will help your project's risk management become successful.

1. In assigning a risk owner, ensure it has a definite personnel name or distinct role if the person is not yet onboard. Such distinct roles like Site A Project Engineer so that when the person comes on board, he/she can quickly own the risks.
2. Ensure the risk owner has the training, even the basics, on risk management and fully understands his/her roles towards risk management. This is where a lot of projects make mistakes in. This should be added to his/her job description. In fact, it is advised that all project professionals are exposed to risk management training.
3. Ensure the Risk Owner is willing to communicate the risk status with the Project Manager, the Risk Champion or Manager, and the entire team. You can make it part of his daily, weekly, or monthly reports as well as make his risk reports during project meetings.

Conclusion

The Risk Owner is critical to the success of the Project's Risk Management and make sure that he/she is well-trained in risk management and plays the requisite roles in ensuring the project's success.

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