Mastering Risk Management

COMMUNICATING KEY MESSAGES AND OTHER COMMON ISSUES

Communication of key messages

Report producers often assume that the reader has the same knowledge of risk as they do. This is rarely true. In addition, most senior management have considerably less time to read and digest a report than the producer of the report took to produce it. Attention must therefore be given to making sure that the report communicates the key messages. This can be done in a variety of ways, often by techniques such as highlighting or using colours, but take care not to overuse colours.

Risk reports may be directed at heads of departments, heads of business lines, risk committees or the board. There are clearly differing needs in this broad church of users. At one extreme, ...