What is a risk assessment?
Also called: risk analysis
Last updated
A risk assessment is a structured look at what could go wrong in an activity, a system or an organisation, how likely each risk is and how serious it would be, and what will be done to reduce it. The findings are recorded with owners and actions and reviewed regularly, or when something changes.
In more detail
The method is similar whatever the subject, whether health and safety, information security, a supplier or a project: identify the hazards or threats, decide who or what could be harmed and how, rate the risk, usually by likelihood and impact, decide on controls, record the results and review them. The UK Health and Safety Executive describes the same idea in five steps.
The rating is less important than the actions. A risk register full of scores but without owners, controls and review dates gives a false sense of safety.
Example
A warehouse assesses its loading bay. Reversing vehicles are rated likely and severe, so the team adds a marked pedestrian walkway, a banksman for reversing and high-visibility clothing, and re-rates the risk as unlikely. The assessment is reviewed each year or after any incident.
Risk assessments in CheckFlow
In CheckFlow a risk assessment can run as a checklist with the risks in a Table field, likelihood and impact as drop-downs, and the control actions raised as tasks with owners and due dates. A schedule starts the review each year, and each completed assessment is kept as the record.
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