Managing Hidden Risks in Construction Projects
What are the risks associated with construction projects? In this blog, I’m going to walk you through some of the top ones and answer common questions that have come up on this topic. This is brand new content on risk management that I think you’ll find valuable.
Too often, teams fill out a risk register once and never look at it again. Meanwhile, threats start happening, the team spirals out of control, and suddenly you’re dealing with unevenness and overburden. In this blog, I’m not only talking about obvious risks like safety or weather, I’m talking about the hidden risks that you typically can’t see, but that can really damage your project.
Establishing a General Process
In one of the most popular blogs on this channel, I explained how to run a project step by step. It included:
- Establishing a plan.
- Knowing the owner’s conditions of satisfaction.
- Communicating them clearly to the team.
- Assembling the right team, with spatial or geographical control.
- Tracking each area with the right key performance indicators.
A key point from that blog: risks must be continuously monitored, with one person ultimately responsible (OPER) for each area. Once you have the right people in the right seats, the challenge becomes staying focused like driving a car.
There are two simple driving rules:
- Don’t hit the car in front of you.
- Don’t drift out of your lane.
On projects, we often get distracted by secondary things (like turn signals in the driving analogy) instead of staying focused on what really matters: avoiding the major risks right in front of us.
The Most Important Risks
Yes, safety is always a core value and must remain at the top of the list. But beyond that, the biggest project risks are often the ones you cannot see without proper systems. That’s why visual production plans, macro-level Takt plans, look-aheads, and weekly work plans are so critical.
Your risks are not some far-off, uncontrollable event. They’re the constraints and bottlenecks you can map visually, such as:
- Trade bottlenecks.
- Zone bottlenecks.
- Batch size bottlenecks.
- Precedence bottlenecks (when one activity can’t proceed until others are finished).
By visualizing these, you uncover risks before they disrupt the project.
Two Categories of Risks
- Catastrophic Risks – These are the big, visible risks that could cause severe damage, like a crane collapse, a trench cave-in, or a fall from height. They require “productive paranoia” worrying enough to plan until you’re confident the danger is mitigated.
- Hidden Risks – These are often missed without visual planning. Things like zone clashes, trade instability, or improper batch sizes can quietly build into major problems if left unseen.
Trade Instability and Daily Planning
Another key risk is trade instability partners not showing up or performing poorly. The solution is to identify these issues early through premobilization meetings, pull planning, mockups, and first-run studies ideally months before they hit the field.
Daily planning can also help, but only when combined with strategic horizons:
- Project horizon (entire project view).
- One-year horizon (weather, procurement, environmental factors).
- Three-month horizon (team pull planning).
- Six-week horizon (roadblock-free focus).
- Three-week horizon (trade partner start planning).
- One-week horizon (weekly work plan).
- Day horizon (next-day plan).
Daily plans alone won’t save a project, they must connect to broader horizons.
Making Risk Management Serious
The risk and opportunity register should never be something that sits on a shelf. Review it weekly, hold each other accountable, and make it a visible, living part of your team culture. Accountability means helping each other meet expectations and keeping risks front and center.
Key Takeaway
The most dangerous risks on construction projects aren’t always obvious. Beyond catastrophic events, hidden risks like bottlenecks, trade instability, and planning gaps can quietly derail a project. By applying visual systems, strategic horizons, and consistent accountability through a living risk register, teams can see risks before they happen and keep projects on track.
If you want to learn more we have:
-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here)
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here)
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)
Discover Jason’s Expertise:
Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.
On we go
