For most project risk managers, the real risk isn’t buried in a spreadsheet. It’s in the chaos behind the scenes—the invisible work of chasing down inputs, consolidating mismatched formats, and trying to tell a coherent story to leadership with incomplete or outdated data.
Risk management isn’t simple. It requires risk professionals to become generalists and specialists simultaneously—to understand causes, consequences, controls, and costs across every part of a project.
And unlike the models we manage, our own critical path rarely feels stable. Risk managers spend too much time manually collecting and reworking data—sometimes repeating the same tasks quarter after quarter.
The question is: How do we manage the risk process without letting it manage us?
The complexity isn’t just technical—it’s operational. Today’s project risk managers are expected to:
All of this depends on one thing: reliable, up-to-date data. And that’s where most workflows fall apart.
Most of the friction begins with information gathering. How do you pull insights from dozens of teams? What happens when inputs come back unstructured or incomplete? And how do you translate all of that into a report a stakeholder can actually use?
We asked seasoned risk professionals where their biggest challenges lie. Their answers were strikingly consistent:
These are not fringe cases—they’re the daily reality for risk managers working across complex, distributed project environments.
Three core problems for project risk managers are seeking, collecting, and uncovering good data. In the sections that follow, we’ll break down each challenge—and show how Predict! is purpose-built to solve them.
Most project teams have some version of a risk register, but they’re usually stuck in Excel, buried in SharePoint folders, and siloed across functions. That makes it nearly impossible to roll up insights or share status without stitching together dozens—or even hundreds—of files. And whether it’s through spreadsheets, workshops, or interviews, getting good information from stakeholders remains painfully manual.
As a result, 50% of risk managers spend a large portion of their time on manual, repetitive tasks—and 80% report having to rework inputs even after collection, according to Electro IQ.
Most are stuck relying on Microsoft Office tools that don’t provide role-based access, revision history, or proper audit trails.
Predict! changes this with a central repository that brings together enterprise, portfolio, and project-level risks, controls, actions, and assessments into one interactive, enterprise-wide system. You can zoom into a project-level view (like “Project A”) or aggregate risks across portfolios, departments, and business units—without managing a hundred spreadsheets.
Example of an in-depth look at Project A in Predict!
Take the example of a “technical demonstrator failure” risk event. In Predict!, you don’t just see the event—you see:
The system’s heat map grid shows risk severity—like a score of 12 in this case—and even highlights potential opportunities, not just threats. And because every update is saved with full revision history and audit trail, your reports are always built on real-time data.
Example of a project heat map within Predict!
Once the data comes in, it’s often unstructured and inconsistent. That means hours spent trying to translate it into a format executives can actually understand.
Reports that should take minutes often take days. Risk managers report spending 12+ hours per quarter building dashboards for board-level meetings.
Without a centralized system, there's no clean way to ask:
Scenario planning becomes guesswork.
Predict! makes this kind of thinking easy to visualize:
And it’s not limited to one ecosystem. You can import your existing schedules from Microsoft Project, Primavera, or Deltek Open Plan directly into Predict! to align modeling with your actual project plans.
Example of a bowtie report in Predict!
This might be the most overlooked challenge of all: risk management doesn’t end with identification—it lives in the execution. But too often, the systems for tracking actions, assigning owners, logging progress, and linking controls live in different silos. This highlights the real risk of disconnected data in portfolio decision-making, where critical project information is fragmented and out-of-date, leaving leaders without full context for confident decisions.
In a perfect world, risk registers, control tests, and treatment plans would live side by side—and speak the same language. But most organizations are still juggling Excel files and access databases that don’t talk to each other.
What you end up with is this: someone asks, “Where are we with that mitigation?” And the answer is… “Let me check with so-and-so.” No audit trail. No update. Just a gap.
Predict! solves this by addressing actions alongside risks and controls. Each action is linked directly to its risk driver, with timelines, budget allocation, and real-time status updates.
The result: when someone asks for an update, you don’t go searching. You show the audit trail, the logs, and the actions surrounding the risk.
Because risk management doesn’t happen in a spreadsheet. It only happens when people take the necessary action to respond.
Example of risk actions in Predict!
We’ve already looked at how Predict! helps streamline input, structure risk data, and produce meaningful insights across an enterprise. But when you take a step back, the real value of Predict! becomes clear: it connects the dots across every part of your risk management process.
When we talk to top-performing teams, here’s what they consistently point to:
When risk data is scattered, reporting is manual, and updates rely on endless follow-ups, your own workflow becomes the bottleneck. Predict! helps risk professionals move from spreadsheets and status checks to strategic insight—by centralizing risk, control, and mitigation data, automating analysis, and keeping stakeholders accountable.
Reclaim your time. Refocus your energy. And manage your own critical path with the same precision you bring to your projects. Request a demo of Predict! today.
