Risks & updates
The project risk register and the period-based status narrative - the two records that make governance meetings short.
Schedule and budget say how the project is; risks and updates say how it's going - and going to go. These two lightweight records replace the status PowerPoint nobody can find later.
The risk register
Each project carries its own risk register. A risk entry has:
- Description - what could happen ("winter arrives before roof membrane complete")
- Category - technical, financial, schedule, resource, or external
- Probability and impact - scored, combining into a severity band
- Mitigation and contingency - what you're doing to prevent it, and the plan if it lands anyway
- Owner, due date, and status - who's watching it and by when; status moves through identified → analyzing → mitigating → resolved (or accepted)
Risks also plot on a probability × impact matrix, so the meeting can look at one grid instead of reading twenty rows.
This is the project-delivery cousin of asset risk - same discipline, different subject. The register is a living list: review it at each project meeting, resolve what's passed, add what's emerged.
Project updates
An update is a status entry posted against a reporting period: pick the cadence (bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, or annual), the year, and the period, then write the narrative - progress, decisions, what's next. The timeframe and period lock once the update is created, which is the point: updates form a regular series, not a loose pile of notes.
Updates are the project's memory:
- The board summary drafts itself from the last few periods.
- A new PM inheriting the project reads the updates in order and knows the story.
- Disputes about "when did we know X" resolve by period.
Post on the cadence you chose, and mention every milestone hit and every approved change order in the period it happened.
Comments vs. updates
Comments (the project's Activity tab) are conversation - questions, quick answers. Updates are record - deliberate period entries. Keep the distinction and both stay useful; blur it and updates drown in chatter.
The governance loop
- Before the meeting: skim open risks, the latest update, and the financials view.
- In the meeting: decisions, not archaeology.
- After the meeting: capture decisions in the current period's update; adjust risks accordingly.
An AI assistant connected via MCP can assemble step 1 into a briefing across all active projects - see example workflows.