London 2012 Learnings (Part II): Olympic Risks
In this three-part interview, our CEO and Co-Founder, Peter Ward, talks about his experiences working at the best ever Olympic Games, London 2012. Topics include everything from LOCOG to WeTrack, Incidents to Risks, and more.
Olympic Risks
In this second installment, Peter discusses his experiences of Olympic Risks, risk and issue management at London 2012, from making sure they were correctly logged and monitored, to taking action to mitigate the risks.
How were risks identified at London 2012?
Risks and Issues were identified by the various functional area and venue teams. Most risk and issue management is similar across industries and London 2012 was no different. Standard practice is to:
- Measure the impact and likelihood of each risk to get an overall rating;
- Keep a log of all risks and their ratings which is constantly updated according to project progress and developments;
- Sort out the red risks first! (those with high potential impact and a high likelihood of happening)
A weekly report of risks and issue status was then circulated to teams — this was obviously restricted according to the seniority and viewing permissions of each recipient.
Sounds like a lot of admin! Who was responsible for logging and monitoring their progress?
There was a dedicated Risks and Issues team within the Project Delivery Office who acted as the central team to sense check the items being raised and report on them. Ultimately, however, risks and issues are always the responsibility of the teams that might be impacted by them.
Were there any instances when risks or issues were missed?
In a project that size, almost certainly! The organisational structure at LOCOG was amazing, and there were plenty of project managers, support staff and secondees, so most of what might have been missed in another organisation was caught and dealt with. Having said that, the systems we were using did not help things, especially with regards to the aforementioned level of admin. I think we could have really reduced head count if the risks and issues portal was more intuitive, more automated and a little more sexy!
Part 3 of this interview to follow soon…
Originally published at www.wetrack.com on August 15, 2017.
