Risk Register Template

Published by Brad Kuhn on 13 Jun 2007 at 06:39 am

If you have seen the Risk Management Plan template posted at this site, you will have noticed a reference to a risk register. A risk register is a tool that allows you track identified risks – their potential impact, your planned response, owner, status, etc… If your project has a good PM tool suite in place, you may already have a tool that can handle this. If not, this template will come in handy.

The template is available in Excel or OpenOffice format. The template is documented, but if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

28 Comments

28 Responses to “Risk Register Template”

Norman Maxwell on 23 Apr 2008 at 8:50 am #

Mr. Kuhn,

Can this template be used for governmental purposes? I know you say it cannot be used commercially, so I wanted to see if I could get permission to use it for a government entity.
Brad Kuhn on 23 Apr 2008 at 9:06 am #

Yes, feel free to use in any way that doesn’t involve selling the work – so use at the government is certainly ok. Thanks for you interest!
Gilberto Costa on 05 Feb 2010 at 8:12 pm #

Hello Brad,

Just to thank you for developing those template
. I’m intending to use this for a Portuguese speak country’s ministry of health. is it ok to translate and use your templates?
Rich on 01 Mar 2010 at 12:14 pm #

I would like to add your Risk register template to my Excel Project spreadsheet which will only be used on campus. What would you need me to show on the page giving you full credit Brad?

Thanks
Brad Kuhn on 01 Mar 2010 at 12:34 pm #

Just add a link to my site – that’s it.

Cheers!
Brad Kuhn on 01 Mar 2010 at 12:36 pm #

Absolutely – feel free to translate it!

Cheers!
Robert Clubb on 17 May 2010 at 9:48 am #

Hi Brad
Firstly, thanks for making this template available – it has saved me an inordinate amount of time.

I’ve made a number of amendments to your base template which I’ll be using in helping to manage some government programmes and projects I’m working on – no commercial stuff.

Perhaps some of the amendments might be of interest to others and I’m happy to share them if so. Things I’ve changed include

- I display a text entry in Matrix Score (High Medium or Low) derived from the Probability and Impact values. The conditional RAG formatting remains
- I’ve changed the Risk Strategy validation to be constrained according to 3 new lists I’ve set up i.e. High, Medium and Low. This keeps me right with our internal risk management strategy e.g. you can Terminate, Transfer or Treat a High risk but can only Treat or Tolerate a low risk
- made a couple of other minor adjustments – primarily cosmetic – to fit in with our own management strategy

Many thanks again for setting me on the right road
Lu on 07 Jul 2010 at 11:52 am #

Hey Brad.
I’m a PM for a non-profit company and would like to use an adapted version of your template (which is awesome) – i.e. change some of the status values and possibly remove some of the columns. The Readme tab said it shouldn’t be used for commercial use and I wanted to see if you would be ok with me adapting it as long as I give credit to you as the original source.
Thanks in advance for your consideration of this request.
Brad Kuhn on 07 Jul 2010 at 7:21 pm #

No problem – feel free. Glad you’re finding it useful.
James DeZell on 19 Sep 2010 at 2:43 pm #

Mr. Kuhn,
I teach Risk Management for a major online university and had a student ask for an example. Finding your site was great. I have posted your example of a Risk Register. What is really great about it is that this example really relates to what I teach in the class.
My compliments to you for your very detailed work here.
If you have the opportunity, I would very much like to exchange an additional email with you about your documents but do not want to do that in this open forum.

Thanks
Krishna Prasad on 27 Dec 2010 at 9:21 am #

Hi Brad,

Thank you very much for sharing this. Your Risk register template is very comprehensive, concise and clear. I work for a Govt agency and would like to make some changes and use it create a risk register for our project. I would like to get your permission before I use.

Thanks
Brad Kuhn on 28 Dec 2010 at 2:31 pm #

Prasad-

Absolutely – feel free to make changes and use it as you see fit. Glad you found it helpful.
Tabatha Bowler on 14 Jan 2011 at 4:31 am #

Hi Brad

Many thanks for making this template available, would it be possible to make some changes to your document for purpose of a Primary Care Trust project?

Kindest regards
Brad Kuhn on 14 Jan 2011 at 7:54 am #

Absolutely – no problem at all.
Debra Le Bhers on 16 Jan 2011 at 10:18 pm #

Dear Brad
Thanks for your welcome info and templates on Risk Management. I am a CEO for a non profit organisation and write to ask permission to use this for our company use only.

I assure you that I will reference your website appropriately.

Regards
Debra
Brad Kuhn on 24 Jan 2011 at 8:18 am #

Absolutely – feel free to utilize the template. Thanks for asking!
Nerol Ilarupa on 17 May 2011 at 6:56 pm #

Dear Mr Kuhn

Thank you for your website I find your templates very comphrensive. I work for a govenment agency and I’m quite new to my new role but after going through your templates I have found it very helpful.

I am seeking your permission to use your templates and will ensure to reference your website appropriately.

Thank you,
Nerol
Brad Kuhn on 19 May 2011 at 12:21 pm #

Absolutely – please feel free to use the templates!
Tierney Stetson on 19 Aug 2011 at 8:50 am #

Am working with a nonprofit organization in the sw development field and would like to use this register yet does not allow me to save the template. How may I gain permission to use this template?
Brad Kuhn on 19 Aug 2011 at 9:05 am #

Feel free to use the template. You should be able to download the file in either Excel or OpenOffice formats from the 2nd paragraph and just save the files locally. Hope you find it helpful.
Bruce Danziger on 05 Oct 2011 at 7:27 pm #

Hi
May I use the spreadsheet for a building project?
Thanks,
Bruce
Brad Kuhn on 06 Oct 2011 at 5:42 am #

Absolutely, feel free to use it – I hope you find it helpful.
Mark Gatens on 18 Oct 2011 at 4:24 am #

Hi Brad

This is great, would I be OK to use this (slightly amended) and the related Risk Management Plan at my place of work please, I work for a company producing accounting software.

Also, could you clarify the non-commercial use please, does that mean that you cannot use it in a commercial organisation without permission or does it mean that you cannot use it for commercial gain.

Thanks
Brad Kuhn on 18 Oct 2011 at 6:32 am #

Absolutely – feel free to use it. The creative commons license I’ve released just prevents you from selling this as your own work, but you can certainly use it in a commercial organization.

Hope you find it useful.
Shane Jones on 07 Nov 2011 at 4:52 pm #

This is a great spreadsheet to start with. Do you know how I can create a heat map plotting the risks using Excel?

Thanks.
Brad Kuhn on 08 Nov 2011 at 8:25 am #

I haven’t, but there’s a few suggestions I can make:

1) If you are using Excel 2010 you could utilize Color Scales conditional formatting.
2) This article describes using ASAP Utilities to generate heapmaps. I’ve used ASAP before for other functions and can highly recommend it.
3) This article explains doing heatmaps with and without VBA.

Hope that helps!
Jeff D on 18 Jan 2012 at 4:04 pm #

Hi Brad,

I have been asked to create a risk register that must follow the requirements of the Fourth Edition of the PMBOK guide published by the Project Management Institute (ANSI / PMI Standard 99-001-2008). I don’t have access to the official publications, can you tell me how closely your template follows this source?

Thank you!
Brad Kuhn on 19 Jan 2012 at 1:15 pm #

Jeff-

The PMBOK doesn’t specify templates, just the process that needs to be followed. In risk management, the PM should: 1) identify risks (see section 11.1 of the PMBOK), 2) quantify risk (section 11.2), and 3) develop risk responses (section 11.3). The template I developed can be used for all 3 steps – it was developed keeping the PMBOK process in mind. PMBOK specifies different techniques that can be used for each of the steps – based on what your organization uses, this template can assist, but you may also need to supplement it with other tools. For example, one technique for risk response is to obtain insurance – while you could use my template to note that the response to a specific risk is mitigated by insurance, you wouldn’t be able to use it to estimate the cost of the insurance.

Hope this helps!