From a PM: Corporate event risk management

I always plan projects. Even when I am talking about organizing corporate events. Everything can be seen as a project and having a structured approach in planning and risk management ensures that the events are delivered just as successful projects: entire scope on time and within budget.

I would like to talk to you about risk management in corporate events, because even if the events are perceived by the public as an enjoyable and fun way of spending time, it is the job of the event planner to mitigate and close the risks that might affect the success of the event. Neither the public nor the client will see the work that an event planner needs to do to ensure that the risks are under control, because something that does not happen is not visible. But the client will know for sure when an event planner did not do his/her job correctly. Better to avoid that.

Project management theory (and in particular PRINCE2) defines a risk as “an uncertain event or set of events that, should it occur, will have an effect on the achievement of objectives”. The “effects” could be both negative and positive, even though the word risk has a negative connotation usually. In practice, a risk for an event is that there will be an electrical power shutdown in the middle of the special speaker’s presentation or live band performance.

The good thing about having a theoretical base supporting your planning skills is that it allows you to apply a methodical approach to planning an event. I would recommend PRINCE2 Practitioner certification to any event planner that wants to deliver quality.

Now that we have defined what a risk is, I will continue by telling you that, for every project or event, risks need to be identified, assessed and managed.

Risk identification

The identification phase starts together with building the plan of the event, and there are several options for doing this. You can use lessons learned from the previous events you have organized, you can brainstorm together with you project team and put together a list of all the things that can go wrong before and during your event, you can use assumption analysis technique, etc. So put together a list of all the risks that you can identify and that can have a negative impact on your event, explaining also the impact in a sentence.

Risk assessment

The risk assessment means clarifying the importance of the risk. Any risk has several characteristics, but I consider the following as the most important:

• Category of the risk (internal, supplier related, etc.)
• Likelihood or probability of the risk
• Proximity of the risk
• Impact expected value
• Risk classification

There are several risk estimation techniques such as probability trees, expected value method or probability impact grid that you might want to read about to ensure an accurate risk assessment. Having clarified all these characteristics for the identified risks will help you manage them according to the gravity and importance. You can now start to build your risk register of the event as you move on to the management phase.

Risk management

Risk management means to prepare specific actions to mitigate the risks, or in other words to prepare „responses” to the risk that would ideally remove or reduce the threat. All the information regarding the risk management plan will be kept in a risk register that should be regularly updated, at least once per week for major risks.

I know I mentioned the three activities are done in phases but the truth is that the cycle continues until the event is over (and in some cases even after the event is over), because new risks can be identified at any time during the event planning.

In addition to the below information and characteristics, any risk should have a status (open, accepted, mitigation in progress, closed, etc.), risk owner or risk actionee, as the two roles might not be assigned to the same person.

For example let’s define the risk I mentioned above as it would be done in a risk register:

• Risk number: R-01
• Risk category: External suppliers
• Risk short name: Electric power outage
• Risk description: There is a risk that there will be an electric power outage during the event that will interrupt any activity and might cause panic among the participants
• Status: Open
• Expected impact date: June 10th (Event date)
• Likelihood  (scale from 1-low to 5-high) – 1
• Impact (scale from 1-low to 5-high) – 5
• Risk owner: Julia
• Risk actionee: George
• Risk response: Avoid
• Mitigation activity(s): Rent a backup generator that can cover electric power needs for at least two hours and install it at the location.
• ETAs:
  • Identifying and contracting supplier: April 30th
  • Installing the generator: June 8th

Risk register

The risk register should reflect how „safe” you event is. Don’t get me wrong, there is always the possibility of something that we did not foresee to happen, but the more practice you put into risk management, the better you will become at anticipating what might go wrong during your event. And of course, at doing something about it.

For more information about corporate events management techniques and best practices, visit MONDEVENTS blog.