A RAID log built to be used weekly, not filed away until auditors ask. Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies — one sheet, one cadence, real ownership.
Pre-built tabs for Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies. Probability/impact scoring, owner fields, due dates. Conditional formatting for severity.
One-page PDF you can pin to a Slack channel or print. Covers the review cadence, escalation thresholds, and what NOT to put in the log.
The actual rhythm I use to keep RAIDs alive: weekly 15-min review, monthly cleanup, quarterly retrospective. The cheat sheet walks through it.
One purchase, yours to keep. Use it on every program, customize for your team. Works in Excel and Google Sheets.
I've inherited dozens of programs over 20 years across enterprise programs. Almost every one of them had a RAID log. Almost none of them were being used.
The pattern: someone sets it up at kickoff. It gets a few entries in the first month. By month three, it's a tab nobody opens. When something blows up, the post-mortem says "we should have flagged this risk" — and it's right there in the log, last updated 90 days ago.
"A RAID log isn't a document. It's a meeting agenda. If you're not reviewing it, you don't have one."
This template forces the cadence by structure. The cheat sheet gives you the script. The result: a RAID log that actually drives the conversation in your weekly program review, instead of sitting in a SharePoint nobody bookmarks.