Week 4 of Inside The Capital Project Content Series (ITCPS). If you're just joining, each week I share a challenge that comes up while executing complex capital projects and the article we put together on it.
This week is risk, and specifically the timing of when it gets discussed.
The argument is that risk management works best when everyone aligns early, before decisions are locked in and risk gets absorbed into execution. The part I hadn't thought about is why that's so hard in practice. Risk usually lives in its own register, separate from scope, cost, schedule and contract data, so no one has a clear view of total exposure in one place.
Owners need to understand exposure to protect the investment, and contractors need clarity to execute predictably, and both get harder when risk sits apart from everything it relates to. Once planning decisions are final, the conversation stops being about identifying risk and starts being about handling it. The full article breaks it down even further.
Question for the Community: When does risk first come up on your projects, and who is actually in the room for that conversation?
