a little risk management FI

A Little Risk Management Saves a Lot of Fan Cleaning

In Process Improvement by Gabrielle Clifford

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Risks are everywhere you go, in whatever you do and whoever you are. 


Like that moment in the film ‘JAWS’ when they realised ‘we’re gonna need a bigger boat’… risk identified! Unfortunately a little too late. JAWS had already made an appearance, a prime example of bad Risk Management!

So, what are they? How do they affect us?

We're going to need a bigger server - One Risk Management The definition of Risk in the dictionary is ‘a situation involving exposure to danger’ OR ‘expose (someone or something valued) to danger, harm, or loss’. (Source: Oxford Dictionary)

In respect of a project, this could be a loss of time, costings increased or danger of the project being unsuccessful or worse never finished!

So how do we control them with Risk Management?

Here at itas, we give guidance with our highly skilled Consultancy team, Support staff and Project Finance & Administration team; to assist companies to move from their existing Accounting system to Sage 200.

As part of this process, we produce a Project Initiation Document (PID). A PID provides clients, with a guide to refer to throughout the entire Project, and the milestones that need to be reached on set dates.

One vital part included in the PID is Risk Management. Risk Management is vital for such an important move for your Accounting system; stating the possible risks that could arise at each point of the transition of systems. We also explain the factors that impact these risks and how they are managed when they materialise.

In a move from Sage 50 accounting system to a brand new Sage 200 accounting system, the risks that could occur range from simple time management to the team not fully testing the system before the Go Live date.

A prime example of Project Risk Management within a Sage 50 to 200 transition

In this example, I will show you how risks can materialise and what can be done to prevent/control them.

Risks Identified

That your team members will not be available in a timely fashion or not available for the time required.

Risks Prevention & Management

Your team members will schedule in time to their calendars to perform the tasks required for the Sage 200 system implementation.

Should the risk materialise – assess the effect on any part of the remaining project dates and deliverables.  You will monitor the progress of the system implementation against the project plan and consider either additional consultancy input or delaying the start date of using Sage 200.

If this is not done, project milestones will not be hit and the use of the resource will be inefficient (cost & time frames).

The importance of Risk Management and we’ve now bought a bigger boat…

So, we know risks are in abundance in whatever you do and whoever you are. Within a Project, we can see from the examples given that risks can have a minor or major effect on a Projects’ time frame.

We also know prolonging a project finishing causes an increase of cost in both money, time and resources… something we all want to avoid!

This can tell us that Risk Management is a vital part of any type of Project. Keep on time, in budget and get completed.


No matter what industry you are in, risks need management. If you want to minimise them, or even completely prevent them from happening. As Jerome F. Lederer an American aviation-safety pioneer said…

jerome-f-lederer - Risk Management is a more realistic term than safety.

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