Risk Management Improvement - UK Government Agency
This UK Government Agency wanted to improve it's use of Risk Management due to obtaining only 'Partial Assurance' in it's 2006 and 2007 annual Risk Management audit. They were determined not to obtain the same result three years running - and so engaged our UK-based Risk Management specialist through a UK partner.
Following a quick assessment based on the M_o_R framework, our Risk Management consultant made a wide-ranging series of recommendations which were accepted. He then proceeded to implement them alongside their internal Risk function while transferring his knowledge and experience.
The overall direction of the recommendations were aimed at making Risk Management a more normal everyday part of activities and not something that required a special time and place to carry out. A combination of education, new techniques and persuasion was and is still being used to embed good practise Risk Management down at team level. A particular emphasis was placed on Opportunity identification and management and in making Risk Management an open, team-based activity rather than just the responsibility of the few.
The implementated recommendations included;
- New simpler Risk Management processes
- New Risk Management techniques and tools - Risk Spotters in meetings, Risk Walls for team RM activity, Butterfly cause/effect diagrams, etc
- Team-level Risk Management self-assessment tools for team managers and members
- Better back-up information from the central risk function - common-sense Risk Prompt Lists, etc.
- A new agency-wide Risk Management Workshop - educating managers a little about the theory and a LOT about the practicalities and common-sense of RM
- More regular internal assessments based on HM Treasury RM Assessment Framework
- Use of M_o_R for people with special responsibility for Risk
The work still continues, but a clear interim result was that in the 2008 audit the Agency achieved a level of 'Substantial Assurance'.