Managing risk and ensuring sustainability

Client:  A community youth venture

Problem: To ensure sustainability, management needed a risk management plan which had the involvement and backing of trustees. They needed advice quickly on how to start the process.

Approach: Jigsaw initially sent out questionnaires to all trustees asking what factors in the venture’s business were critical to its survival and what events might cause it to struggle. The responses were analysed and used to construct an influence diagram of factors which might lead the venture to fail. This was then used as the basis for a workshop for stakeholders. Stakeholders were divided into groups each of which studied part of the diagram, corrected it, added to it and indicated which factors were most critical. A plenary session examined all the factors and used the agreed most critical ones to form the basis of an initial risk management plan.

Benefits: The plan was adopted by management and the board. The Chief Executive commented ‘Risk management is now coming from the top down’.

Contact: Sue Merchant