Risk management questions
Risk is questioned because it is easy to claim and hard to evidence. The panel is testing whether a register was a live document that changed decisions, or a spreadsheet produced once and never opened. Bring an example where identifying a risk changed what the client did.
Risk management
Identify, quantify and manage commercial and project risk; advise on contingency and implement systems to manage it. An optional competency, and the one most QS candidates take.
What the assessor is listening for
- That risk was identified with the people who knew about it, not written up alone at a desk.
- That you can explain how a risk allowance was quantified, and what happened to it as risks closed out.
- That you connect risk to contract: who is best placed to manage it, and where the form actually puts it.
- That the register drove a decision. Naming the decision is the evidence.
Level 1
Knowledge & understanding - you can explain the principle.
- What is a risk register, and what should be on it?A strong answer covers: The risk described as a cause and an effect, an owner, a likelihood and impact assessment, the mitigation, and a review date. Then the difference between a risk and an issue.
- What is the difference between risk and uncertainty in an estimate?A strong answer covers: Identified events you can describe and allow for, against the imprecision in the estimate itself. Why the two are allowed for differently and reported separately.
Level 2
Application - you have done it yourself and can describe how.
- How was a risk register built and maintained on a project you worked on?A strong answer covers: Who was in the workshop, how items were captured and owned, the review cycle, and what changed on it over the job. Your own part in it.
- How do you quantify a risk allowance?A strong answer covers: The method used (a costed assessment of individual risks, weighted by likelihood, or a modelled range), what informed the inputs, and how the allowance was drawn down as risks were retired or realised.
- Where does your contract put the risk of ground conditions, and is that the right place?A strong answer covers: What the form and the particulars actually say, what information the contractor was given and could rely on, and the reasoning about who is better placed to manage it.
Level 3
Reasoned advice & depth of judgement - you have advised others and can justify decisions and trade-offs.
- A client wants to transfer all risk to the contractor. What do you advise?A strong answer covers: That risk transferred is risk priced, and priced by someone who cannot control it, so it comes back as premium or as dispute. The principle of allocating to the party best able to manage it, and the recommendation.
- Tell me about a risk that materialised. What did it cost, and what would you do differently?A strong answer covers: The risk, whether it was on the register, what the allowance covered, the actual effect on cost and time, and the specific change you made afterwards. Assessors value a job that went wrong and was learned from.
- How would you advise a client on their exposure to insolvency in the supply chain?A strong answer covers: The warning signs, the checks before and during appointment, the contractual protections available (bonds, guarantees, payment and vesting arrangements) and what each costs, and the recommendation.
How candidates lose this one
A register with no owners and no dates. The panel will ask who was managing each item and when it was last reviewed.
Allocating every risk to the contractor. The follow-up is what that costs the client in the price.
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