Mitigation work

A mitigation is useful when the team can tell who is acting and what has changed. The Risk Owner describes the response in the risk register. The Delivery Lead then uses project work packages and tasks to organize the work. Both records should point to the same project so a review can read the exposure, the response and the delivery state together.

• Define the response. Record the mitigation on the risk with a named owner and a current assessment.
• Assign work. Place tasks in a work package, choose an assignee and give the work a due date where one is needed.
• Review progress. Compare task status with the risk’s monitoring state before declaring the exposure reduced.

The risk owner and task assignee may be different people. The owner remains responsible for checking whether the mitigation addresses the exposure; the assignee is responsible for a piece of delivery. A completed task does not itself establish that the risk should close. Likewise, a risk remaining Open does not mean the assigned task has failed.

Decide which project manager reviews changes to risk status and who can assign the associated delivery work. Agree how the team will describe the connection in the mitigation and task description. The records share a project reference; use a stable risk code in the working description when the team needs to point from a task back to a particular assessment.

Define when a task is blocked and who needs to know. A blocked task with an approaching due date belongs in the delivery review before the next risk checkpoint. The Delivery Lead should also decide whether a work package is a useful grouping for a response that spans several tasks, or whether one assigned task is enough.

A project has a High likelihood Resource risk because a specialist may be unavailable. The Risk Owner writes a mitigation to prepare a substitute and records the project. The Delivery Lead creates a task in the relevant work package, assigns it to a team member and sets the due date ahead of the next review checkpoint.

At the handoff, the Project Manager compares the task with the register entry. If the task is Blocked, the manager addresses the delivery impediment and leaves the risk assessment honest. If the substitute is ready, the Risk Owner reassesses likelihood and impact. The review can then decide whether Monitoring or Mitigated describes the remaining exposure. The task’s completion date alone should not drive that judgment.

• Blocked Tasks — Find response work that needs intervention before its due date.
• Tasks In Flight — Follow assigned work still being delivered or reviewed.

Use delivery response and risk review when the mitigation changes.