Managing Issues & Risks

VPMHR provides a unified log for tracking Issues and Risks across your portfolio. Both are managed in the same place – the difference is in what they represent:

Definitions

An Issue is something that is happening and is impacting a projects progress. An Issue requires follow-up action, either at the project or stakeholder level.

A Risk is something that might happen in the future that the project team is aware of and, potentially, monitoring. A Risk does not require project team intervention, but often can act as a warning sign to executive stakeholders.

We offer this distinction in VPMHR because HR leaders have a tendency to debate Risks as if they are Issues – it’s a place where subtle resistance to progress can rear it’s head.

The Issues & Risks Log

Open Issues & Risks from the navigation menu to see all Issues and Risks across your Organization in a table format. Each row shows the name, description, type (Issue or Risk), status, impact, category, associated Project, and target resolution date.

You can also view Issues and Risks scoped to a single Project from the Issues & Risks tab on any Project detail view. The data is the same – the standalone page shows everything, the Project tab shows only that Project’s items.

Filtering and sorting

The log provides several ways to narrow your view:

  • Status – Open, In Progress, or Resolved
  • Impact – Low, Medium, or High
  • Category – Change Management, Communication, Implementation, Process, System, Training, Budget, Resource, or Scope
  • Sort – by name, type, impact, category, or project
  • Search – real-time text search across all fields

Creating an Issue or Risk

Click the add button on the Issues & Risks Log or on a Project’s Issues & Risks tab. In the slide-out panel, enter:

  • Name (required, up to 100 characters)
  • Type (required) – Issue or Risk
  • Project (required) – the Project this item relates to
  • Detail (optional, up to 250 characters)
  • Date (optional)
  • Impact (optional) – Low, Medium, or High
  • Category (optional) – defaults to “Undefined”
  • Assigned to (optional) – a Resource from the associated Project’s team
  • Action required (optional, up to 50 characters)

New items default to “Open” status.

Editing an Issue or Risk

Expand a row to see and edit the full detail. The expanded view has two sections:

Issue/Risk detail:

  • All fields from creation, plus the ability to change status to “In Progress” or “Resolved”

Resolution detail:

  • Target resolution date
  • Actual resolution date
  • Resolution notes (up to 250 characters)
  • Associated Decisions – a list of any Decisions linked to this Issue, shown as clickable links

A save bar appears when you make changes. Click save to apply.

Resolving vs deleting

When an Issue or Risk is resolved, change its status to “Resolved” rather than deleting it. This preserves the record for future reference. Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.

Printing the log

Click the print button at the top of the Issues & Risks Log to open a print-friendly view with the full table. Use your browser’s print dialog to print or save as PDF.