Organisational Process Assets | Plan Risk Management

In the fast-paced Australian architecture and construction industry, experience is one of your most valuable assets.

When planning for project risks under the Project Management Institute (PMI®) standard, Organisational Process Assets (OPAs) serve as a foundational input.

Think of OPAs as your firm’s institutional memory: the accumulated policies, templates, procedures, and historical data that keep you from reinventing the wheel on every project.

For architects managing complex projects, such as a two-story residential home on a sloped site, OPAs provide eight critical documents and tools to streamline the Plan Risk Management process:

1. Organisational Risk Policy: Predefined rules that mandate specific reviews, such as requiring a geotechnical risk assessment for any sloped site design or residential project in a bushfire-prone zone.
2. Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS): A structured way of organising risks into predefined categories such as design, site, environmental, regulatory, client-driven, and cost risks, ensuring comprehensive risk identification.
3. Common Definitions of Risk Concepts: A shared glossary defining terms like "moderate risk" or "high impact" (e.g., defining high risk as any event likely to delay council approval by more than two weeks) to keep the team aligned.
4. Standardised Risk Statement Formats: Guidelines using "If-Then" logic (e.g., "If structural drawings are delayed due to unclear client inputs, then permit submission will be postponed, affecting the timeline") to write clear, traceable risks.
5. Risk Register Templates: Ready-to-use templates tracking risk ID, description, category, probability, impact ratings, mitigation actions, and assigned owners, saving time and ensuring consistency.
6. Defined Roles and Responsibilities: Clear risk assignments, ensuring the project architect, site consultant, and project manager know exactly who handles design, topographical, or overall plan management risks.
7. Decision-Making Authority Levels: Predefined limits establishing who can approve minor design layout changes versus major structural or drainage redesigns that require principal architect sign-off.
8. Lessons Learned Repository: Historical project data, such as a previous build's custom window lead-time delays, helping you proactively mitigate procurement and schedule risks in your current project.

By utilising your firm's OPAs, you ensure consistent, structured, and highly efficient risk planning that builds on your team's collective experience.

Course Information & Syllabus Download

Click on the image below to explore and find out more about our 12-hour online training in regard to risk management for architects that is aligned with 12 CPD. The link will take you to the landing page of the course where you can download the full syllabus, find details, and see how it has been mapped to NSCA 2021.