Fast track to Sustainable Mobility
Risk in High Speed Projects:
From „Worrying“ to „Being in Control“
Movares and its involvement with High Speed Lines
Facts & Figures Movares:
• Turnover (2006): 137 million euro, employees: 1300 FTE
• 7th position in top ten Dutch engineering firms
• Head office in Utrecht, regional offices in Eindhoven, Weesp,
Zoetermeer and Zwolle
• Europe: Offices in Germany and Poland, Projects in Belgium,
France, Portugal, Slovakia, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom High Speed Lines:
• HSL-East (NL), Rhin-Rhone (F), HSL-South (NL), HSL-Portugal (Pt)
Roles for Frits Couwenberg:
• HSL-South, 1998 – 2004. Prm reference design,
Risk- & Interface Management Barendrecht Section • HSL-Portugal. 2004 – 2006. Risk- & Interface manager
What is a risk and how is it handled in many projects?
• Draw up a list of risks at some milestones in the project • Divide the risks into 5 groups: very large - - - - very small
• No regular updates of the risks
• No allocation to specific persons
• No continuous monitoring of the risks
• No financial reservation for the identified risks
Differences between HSL and other rail infra projects
• Dimensions of the HSL are large
• Project takes a long time before it is finished • The line passes a long part of the country
• Because of high speeds, high requirements on stability and position of tracks
Risk management implementation in HSL-South
In 2003 the risk management was centralised:
• Under an integrally managed organisation
• One integral transportationsystem-wide risk register
• Risk management is an explicit part of the integral project management
Conditions for the project organisation:
• Support from the highest project management
• Anticipation required
• Communication on risks is required in an open and transparent setting
• “Total View” instead of “Local View” Conditions for the risk management system:
• Well structured
• Accessible and with low treshold
• Various verifications
• Everything expressed in time and/or money
To what did this lead inside HSL-South
• Every employee can identify new risks
• A new risk is judged before it will be handled
• Central risk manager looks at the relevance of the risk
• A responsible person for the risk is appointed (“risk owner”)
• What sub-projects inside HSL can be influenced by this risk
• Risk owner has to keep the risk up-to-date
• Risk owners were interviewed and challenged about the progress of their
risks
• Risks were managed at various levels in the organisation, depending on their
possible impact
• A financial buffer was installed for covering the risks that will happen • The feasibility for the milestones in the planning was determined
Risk management implementation in HSL Portugal
• The project still was in a very early stage (before selection of the trace)
• Inside the project there was not much experience yet for getting and keeping a
good overview on the risks and their reduction
• The risk management system that was built in Lisbon resembled the HSL-South
system, but less sophisticated
• For every identified risk a risk owner was appointed, and his/her risks were discussed with him/her every month by the risk manager
• Every month the risk manager drew up a risk report, including new and resolved
Special type of risks that cannot be expressed in
money or time
These are called “decisional risks”, which play an important role in the early phases of the project.
• Political decisions
• Financing options
• Image of the project
What was done with up-to-date overview of the risks
• HSL-South compared the overview with earlier overviews to detect trends
and draw up prognoses
• HSL-South uses the overview of risks for choosing between alternatives in
case of major changes in the project
• HSL-South used the overview for challenging risk owners
• HSL-South reported to the ministry of transport
• HSL-South and High Speed Alliance analised their
transportationsystem-wide risks
• The HSL Risk database was developed further and will have to be used in all
projects for the ministry of transport
• For HSL-Portugal every 6-8 weeks a risk meeting was held with the
management to draw global conclusions on the progress of reducing risks • For HSL-Portugal the overall risk analysis was used for their first steps in a
Recommendations from our experiences
• At the very start of a project, enforce one global risk management system
• Make sure that during the entire project there only is one overall risk database
• Freeze the risk status on a regular basis, and freeze the change request
overview at that same moment
• Appoint a risk owner for every risk, who has to reduce this risk
• Appoint an overall risk manager who has to make sure risks are comparable,
consistent and comparable inside the entire project
• As the client for a high speed line, you are responsible for the overall performance of the entire line, including interfaces inside and outside the project, so all risks related to that, are your cup of tea
• As a management always look at the overall picture
Conclusion
By using the experiences from HSL-South and HSL-Portugal, the risks inside HSL (and other large) projects can be managed in an active way.
This means: no more “Worrying” and “Being in Control” instead.
