Not all maintenance is equal. A dripping tap and a failing lift motor both need attention, but one is an inconvenience and the other is a safety and liability risk. A risk led approach means your highest risk items get addressed first, not just the most recent complaint. The hard part for a committee is having a defensible way to decide the order. That is what a risk assessment gives you, and it is simpler than it sounds.
The matrix, in plain words
A risk matrix sounds like consultant furniture. In practice it is two questions asked about every item on your maintenance list.
Question one: how likely is this to go wrong? Call it rare, possible or likely. A new pump with a service history is rare. A fifteen year old pump with weeping seals is likely.
Question two: if it goes wrong, how bad is it? Call it minor, moderate or major. Minor means inconvenience or appearance. Moderate means disruption, cost, or partial loss of a service. Major means safety, liability, serious damage, or loss of an essential service.
Cross the two answers and every item lands in a band.
- High: likely and serious. These get fixed or funded first, whether or not anyone has complained.
- Medium: worth scheduling. These go into the maintenance plan with a date and a budget line.
- Low: cosmetic or tolerable. These get batched into planned works, like a painting cycle, where doing them together is cheaper than doing them one at a time.
No software required. A committee can band its entire defect list in one sitting with those two questions.
A worked example: the pump and the scuff
Take two items from the same building's list.
Item one: the water pressure pump serving the upper floors. Fifteen years old, seals weeping, running louder each month. Likelihood of failure within the year: likely. Consequence: upper floor apartments lose water supply, the plant room risks flooding, and the fix becomes an emergency callout at emergency prices. That combination is major. Likely and major puts the pump at the top of the list, even though not one resident has complained about it, because nobody sees a pump until it stops.
Item two: a scuffed wall in the lobby where a couch went through on moving day. It has already happened, so likelihood is not the question. The question is the consequence of leaving it, and the answer is appearance. Minor. It waits for the next scheduled painting of the lobby, even though three residents mention it every single week.
Run on complaints, this building repaints the lobby in March and loses water to six floors in July. Run on risk, it replaces the pump in March and the scuff waits its turn. Same money, different order, and the order is the whole game.
The matrix also gives the committee something under rated: cover. When a resident asks why the scuff is still there, the answer is not a shrug. It is a documented assessment showing where the money went and why. Committees that can show their reasoning spend less time defending it.
Building a risk profile
Start with a building familiarisation and documentation review. Identify each system's age, condition, regulatory requirements and consequence of failure. Fire safety, lifts and structural elements typically rank highest. Cosmetic issues rank lower. Maintenance records matter here, because you cannot judge the condition of plant that has no history on file. The goal is a clear picture of what could go wrong and how urgently it needs addressing.
Prioritising by risk, not urgency
Urgency is reactive: something breaks and you fix it. Risk is proactive: you fix it before it breaks. A risk led schedule means the committee approves work based on a structured assessment rather than on who complained loudest. That leads to better outcomes, fewer surprises, and less of the reactive premium that emergency work attracts.
It also changes the budget conversation. High band items justify their place in the annual budget with a stated consequence attached. Medium items get scheduled across the year. Low items get grouped where the economics make sense. Owners stop being asked to fund a mystery and start being shown a ranked list.
Keeping the schedule current
Risk profiles change as systems age, regulations update and conditions evolve. The pump you replace drops from high to low. The membrane that was fine five years ago starts creeping up the list. Regular reviews, at least annually and after any significant works, keep the maintenance schedule aligned with reality, so the committee stays in control rather than rediscovering the building every time something fails.
At JKFM, building a risk profile and running maintenance from it is the core of how we manage buildings. The approach is set out on our services page.
Ready to build a risk led maintenance schedule for your building?