Framework Step 4: Monitor & Modify
How Effective Are the Risk Management Strategies?
The Monitor & Modify step provides a “living” route to determine whether the selected risk assessment strategies are effective and to revisit the process if the approach is not helping to achieve risk management goals. This step includes the following sub-steps:
- Track the impact of weather events over time
- Revisit and update the assessment
This step is an iterative process repeated over the long term at an interval dictated by the needs of your agency, supply chain, or other factors.
Tracking Weather Event Impacts
Track the Impact of Weather Events over Time
| Context |
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| Tracking the frequency, severity, costs, and other consequences of supply chain disruptions from weather over time can help you understand shifting vulnerabilities and measure whether extreme weather is placing an increasing burden on operations. It can also help you understand if the risk management strategies are effectively managing the climate related risks. |
Track impacts as incidents occur, and analyze for trends over time. Identify specific metrics, upfront, to help assess the effectiveness of risk management practices. Example metrics include:
- Delay in delivery of goods or services, in days
- Number of delays that are greater than X days (set your own threshold)
- Unplanned additional labor resulting from delay or disruption, in hours
- Cost of delay or disruption, in dollars. Sources of costs may include:
- Increased insurance premiums
- Labor (e.g., overtime, additional staff)
- Replacement of damaged or destroyed goods
- Replacement of damaged or destroyed infrastructure
- Emergency contracts
- Cause of delay by type of weather event
- Number of delays by weather event type
This exercise should be streamlined into existing processes wherever possible. For example, risk management evaluations could be made prior to the beginning of a new contract schedule.
Updating Risk Management Plans
Revisit and Update the Assessment and Plan
| Context |
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| Risk management is a “living” process (see sidebar). After analyzing the data collected during monitoring, revisit the initial Identify step and, if new or unresolved risks are identified, Assess and Plan accordingly. |
Risk management is a “living” process (see sidebar). After analyzing the data collected during monitoring, revisit the initial Identify step and, if new or unresolved risks are identified, Assess and Plan accordingly.
As risk management practices are implemented and as expected changes to climate occur over the coming decades, use the tracking information to periodically reassess:
- The effectiveness of risk management strategies, and
- Newly available climate projections.
Where possible, analyze whether adopted strategies have reduced the time, cost, or other factors associated with obtaining goods and services during extreme weather events. If strategies are not effective, revisit them.
In addition, revisit climate projections to ensure the latest science still supports your assessment of risk. Uncertainty regarding future climate projections increases as the time period assessed is farther in the future (see below ). Agencies should review the latest climate science (e.g., the National Climate Assessment, released every four years) and consider how changes in the science may impact the relevance of risk management strategies.
Near-term climate projections have a tighter range of projections, while distant climate projections have a wider range of projections
Content developed by the the Office of Acquisition Management, Federal Acquisition Service, General Services Administration.
