Add a Risk Response Action

After a project or program risk has been identified and assigned pre-response values, it is the risk manager's job to develop possible response actions to mitigate and minimize the probability and impact of the risk. You can add multiple response actions to a threat, opportunity, or weather risk to detail different methods of minimizing its impact. Examples of response actions include using alternate suppliers to minimize delays, buying better safety equipment to reduce accidents, and building shelters to reduce the effects of bad weather.

Response actions serve to record and describe potential risk mitigation techniques. You can measure their effectiveness by assigning post-response probability, schedule impact, and cost impact values to threat and opportunity risks. For projects, you can then run a quantitative risk analysis on the post-response context to view how your response plan affects projects cost and schedule values. To define post-response values for a risk, see Assign Probability and Impact Values to a Risk. Weather risks support the use of response actions, but they cannot be assigned pre-response or post-response values.

You may also choose to add an activity to your project schedule that represents a response action in the risk register. You can optionally link an activity to a response action. When an activity is linked to a response action, certain response action data, such as Status, Start Date, and Finish Date, are set to read-only and inherited from the linked activity. You can link activities to response actions that belong to project risks but not program risks.

To add a response action for a risk:

  1. In the object selector, select ﱆ Project or Program, and then select a project or a program from the list.
  2. From the Main Menu, select Risk, and then select Risk Register.
  3. In the table, select the risk, and then select the Response Actions detail window.
  4. Select Add.
  5. Complete the following fields for the risk response action:
    • Name: The name of the risk response action.
    • ID: The unique identifier of the response action.
    • Status: Select a status for the response action:
      • Proposed: The default status. The response action has been proposed.
      • Sanctioned: The response action has been proposed and sanctioned.
      • Not Started: The response action has not started.
      • Rejected: The response action has been proposed and then rejected.
      • In-Progress: The response action has started and there is some work still remaining.
      • Completed: The response action has been completed.
    • Start Date: The start date of the response action.
    • Finish Date: The end date of the response action.
    • (Optional) Activity: The activity in the project schedule that represents the associated risk response action.
    • (Optional) Description: Use a variety of formatting options to enter a detailed description of the response action.
  6. Select Save.

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