Participants listening to a presentation during Tafawoq’s risk management workshop.

Project management centre of excellence, Tafawoq, has recently hosted a risk management workshop for decision makers in Doha as part of its commitment to develop the competencies of project management professionals to help deliver Qatar’s capital investment projects.
More than 50 project management professionals from 16 major Qatari organisations such as Qatar Petroleum, Qatargas, RasGas, Oryx GTL, and Qatar Foundation attended the “Designing and Implementing Risk Management Capabilities – Practical Applications” workshop.
The session was delivered by Cyril Salibi, corporate risk director at Astad Project Management, who is a seasoned risk professional with more than 25 years of international multi-disciplinary corporate and operational risk experience.
Tafawoq’s director, Bader al-Jaidah, said Tafawoq has attracted and trained more than 450 project professionals since its establishment in 2012.
“With billions of Qatari riyals being invested in the development of new projects across Qatar, building risk management capability is vital to delivering timely, high-quality complex projects, which is central to Qatar’s rapid infrastructure development.
“We are mindful of the challenges that Qatar’s project management professionals encounter while managing high-risk investment projects, and our programmes and series of workshops aim to address those challenges and brainstorm strategic solutions,” said al-Jaidah.
During the interactive seminar, a case study was presented to the participants who then worked in teams to develop risk assessment matrices to be able to manage and report any risks early on in the project development phase. Many aspects such as Strategic, Operational, Financial, Safety and Health, Legal and Compliance risks were also addressed.
Salibi said: “Effective risk management holds the key to developing an economy that is operationally sound and able to meet the challenges of building iconic projects that are complex and unique in nature. As an industry leader, Astad operates according to international best practices, especially in risk management.
“Our team of global specialists provides world-class portfolio and project risk services that enable effective decision making and contingency planning. We employ a simple but robust approach, which includes risk planning, risk identification, assessment, management, and reporting and quantitative risk analysis supporting more informed decisions in relation with the risk return equation.”