Create a Risk
Add a new risk to your project using Lydaro's 4-step wizard and the cause-event-effect model.
Before you start
You need Editor or Owner role to create risks.
The wizard
Lydaro's new risk form walks you through four steps:
| Step | Purpose |
|---|---|
| 1 · Statement | Describe the risk: title, event, causes, effects, category, owner |
| 2 · Assess | Score inherent probability and impact |
| 3 · Respond | Choose a response strategy and describe the planned response |
| 4 · Review | Set a review due date and add notes |
Step 1 — Statement
Title (required)
A short, descriptive name for the risk. Aim for at least 20 characters to score well on the quality metric.
Event description (required)
Describe what could happen and under what conditions. Aim for at least 30 characters.
AI suggestions
Click ✦ Generate to get AI-suggested risks based on your project context. Select a suggestion to pre-fill the title and event fields. Suggestions require your review.
Causes
Add one or more causes — the conditions that could make the risk event occur.
For each cause:
- Select a category (Technical, Organisational, External, Financial, etc.)
- Enter the cause description
- Press + or Enter to add it to the list
Root cause: When you have multiple causes, click the circle on the left of a cause row to mark it as the root cause. Only one cause can be the root. When there is only one cause, it is automatically treated as the root.
Effects
Add one or more effects — what would happen if the risk event occurred.
Quantify impact: After adding an effect, click + Quantify to expand an impact range:
- Low estimate: The best-case financial (or other) impact
- High estimate: The worst-case impact
- Unit: The unit of measurement (e.g. AUD, days, hours)
Quantified effects contribute to your Risk Quality Score.
Owner
Select the person accountable for managing this risk. Defaults to the project owner.
Step 2 — Assess
Select Probability and Impact from your organisation's configured scales. The inherent risk score is calculated automatically.
Add an optional Confidence % and Rationale to explain your scoring.
Step 3 — Respond
Response strategy
Select a strategy:
| Strategy | When to use |
|---|---|
| Treat | Reduce the probability or impact of the risk |
| Transfer | Shift the financial or operational consequence to a third party |
| Accept | Acknowledge the risk and decide not to act unless it changes |
| Avoid | Change the plan to eliminate the risk entirely |
Note: For Accept and Avoid strategies, the responsible person and due date fields are hidden — these strategies do not require active action items.
Response description
Describe what will be done. Responses with 30+ characters score better on the Quality Score.
Responsible person and due date
For Treat and Transfer strategies, assign a responsible person and set a due date.
Due date shortcuts: Click 1w, 2w, or 4w to quickly set a date 1, 2, or 4 weeks from today.
Step 4 — Review
Set a Review due date to schedule when this risk should be re-evaluated.
Date shortcuts: Click 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, or 4 weeks to quickly set a date relative to today.
Add optional Notes for any additional context.
Review the Summary to confirm all details before saving.
Saving
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Save as draft | Saves the risk in Draft status |
| Save risk | Saves and sets status to Identified |
Writing good risks
The cause-event-effect model helps you write clear, actionable risks:
| Field | Question | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Cause | Why might this happen? | Competitive market for engineers |
| Event | What is the risk? | Lead engineer leaves mid-project |
| Effect | What would the impact be? | Project delayed 4 weeks |
Tip: Be specific. "Technical risk" tells you nothing. "AWS region outage during peak launch period could make the app unavailable for 2–4 hours" is actionable.
After creating
Next steps:
- Assess the risk — add a residual assessment after controls are in place
- Add a response action — break the response into tracked tasks
- Schedule a review — record that the risk has been reviewed