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Managing risk management : a bottom-up approach to increase risk management capability

Kohlweij, Leroy (2015) Managing risk management : a bottom-up approach to increase risk management capability.

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Abstract:Antea Group is an international engineering and environmental consulting firm with over 3600 employees worldwide across five continents. Antea Group Netherlands is divided in six business lines, of which the business line Infrastructure (Infra) wanted to draw up a risk management improvement programme which would lead to a reduction of failure costs, claims and complaints. The goal of this graduation research is therefore to set up a risk management improvement programme. To do so the current state of risk management is analysed, after which its outcome is used to design the risk management improvement programme. Both the analysis and the design closely involved the employees of Infra. This way of involving the employees may also be described as a bottom-up approach, of which literature states that it creates support. This did thus enhance the implementation of the improvement programme. Failure costs and risk management capability: An analysis was carried out to assess the current state of risk management. This analysis identified the main sources of failure costs and focus points for risk management improvements by assessing the 1) failure costs, 2) project risk management capability and 3) organisation risk management capability. The latter involved all employees of Infra through a questionnaire. Through the failure cost analysis the following main sources of failure costs were identified: a) not managing client expectation properly; b) not clearly defining project scope; c) not using the best suitable project team; and d) not delivering a product of proper quality. Through the project risk management analysis it is determined that effectively managing these four sources of failure costs, delivered the desired project result. Furthermore the following focus points were identified through the organisation risk management analysis: a) communication about risk information; b) integration of the risk management process; c) allocation of resources; d) capturing lessons learned; and e) measuring risk management performance. The risk management capability was also assessed through this analysis; it is currently ranked at level 2, while level 4 is the highest possible level. The outcomes of these analyses are used to design measures for the risk management improvement programme. Improvement programme: The five focus points following from the risk management capability analysis were input for five work sessions; one session for each of the five establishments of Antea Group Netherlands. In these sessions the participants set up measures to cope with the aforementioned focus points. These measures were then combined with literature – e.g. literature describing how to advance from risk management capability level 2 to level 3 – to set up the risk management improvement programme. The improvement programme consists of 18 measures that target the focus points that followed from the organisation risk management capability analysis and the main sources of failure costs that followed from the failure cost and project risk management capability analyses. Conclusions & recommendations: The product of this graduation research is thus a comprehensive analysis of the current state of risk management at Infra, and an extensive risk management improvement programme that is supported by the employees of Infra.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:ET: Engineering Technology
Subject:56 civil engineering
Programme:Civil Engineering and Management MSc (60026)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/66754
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