A risk register designed to be used weekly, not filed away until auditors ask. Forces proactive identification, assigns ownership, and tracks mitigation with real dates.
Probability and impact scored 1-5 each, auto-calculated severity, conditional formatting that surfaces the top 5 risks at a glance.
Every risk has a named owner, a mitigation plan, and a review date. No more orphan risks that nobody is actually working.
The five questions to ask before adding a risk, the difference between a risk and an issue, and the weekly review cadence that keeps the register alive.
One purchase, yours to keep. Use it on every program, customize for your team. Works in Excel and Google Sheets.
Almost every risk register I've inherited has the same pattern: 30 entries, none updated in 6 months, all owned by "PMO" or "TBD." When the audit happens, someone updates the dates. When the project blows up, someone says "we should have flagged that risk" — and it's right there, untouched since project kickoff.
The problem isn't the format. It's that there's no review rhythm and no real ownership. A risk owned by "the team" is a risk nobody's working.
"A risk without an owner is just a worry. A risk without a review date is just a journal entry."
This template fixes both. Owner is a required field with a real human's name. Review date forces re-evaluation on a cadence you set. The cheat sheet gives you the script to run the weekly 15-minute review that keeps the register honest.