The CREW register · Aurenia’s positive RAIDRAID lists what could go wrong. CREW is who gets it right.
Our positive RAID. Same discipline, different posture. The four columns of a RAID log, rewritten so the team wants to open it on a Monday morning, with every field that keeps it honest.
The four columns
What each letter asks of the team.
Collaboration
replaces Dependencies
We thrive when we work together. A dependency is a moment to collaborate and strengthen trust.
Every dependency is a person or a team, not a thing to wait on. The entry names who we need, what we need from them, and what they need from us to make it easy.
The weekly question
Who do we need this week, and have we made it easy for them to say yes?
Readiness
replaces Risks
Every risk holds potential. A risk is a readiness question: what do we need in place if it lands, and what does it open up if it does not.
The entry still carries likelihood, impact and a mitigation. What changes is the second half: what we would gain by being ready, and what the risk is telling us about the plan.
The weekly question
If this landed on Monday, are we ready, and what would we be glad we had done?
Evidence
replaces Assumptions
Assumptions are tested, clarified and validated, building honesty, trust and confidence in our direction.
An assumption stays on the register until there is evidence for it. The entry names the assumption, how we will test it, by when, and what changes if it turns out to be wrong.
The weekly question
What are we still taking on faith, and what would it take to know?
Wins
replaces Issues
Issues are signals for progress. Each one closed is a win, with what got better because of it.
An issue is logged the day it happens, in plain words, with its severity. It leaves the register as a win: what was fixed, what changed so it does not come back, and what we learned.
The weekly question
What went wrong this week, what did we do about it, and what is better now?
The one rule
The one rule that keeps it honest.
Every entry keeps every field a RAID entry has. An opportunity still has an owner, a likelihood, an impact and a date. A win still starts as an issue with a severity, logged the day it happens. The posture changes; the discipline does not. A register that softens bad news is not positive, it is late.
Every entry keeps
- Owner
- Size (likelihood and impact)
- Next step
- Date
- Status
RAID to CREW
One to one, nothing dropped.
Four columns, one-to-one. Nothing is dropped and nothing is renamed away from the client who lives with it.
On a project
How it runs on a project.
The weekly status is the register, read aloud.
One page: done, next, blocked, decisions needed, money against budget. The blocked and decisions lines come straight from the Collaboration and Readiness columns.
The retrospective works the Wins column.
Every two weeks the team reads what went wrong and what got better because of it. That is the retrospective; it needs no separate document.
Your PMO still gets a RAID.
Our register carries a RAID view that maps every entry back to Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies. Same data, their language, no re-typing.
Why change it
Why change something that works?
Every project manager we have worked with knows the RAID log, and most of them dread it. It is the page nobody wants to own, the slide the room braces for in the readout, the list read aloud once a week in a flat voice and closed again. It is necessary: you have to see what is coming. But on too many projects it is the only lens, and we have watched projects drift down the wrong path while everyone lived by the RAID log, which improved nothing and delivered nothing.
A register run on fear makes people cautious, not careful.
When the only weekly question is what could go wrong, people stop offering the idea that might go right. A team in a positive frame is more open to new ideas and new ways of doing things, and that is exactly what a transformation needs from it. The fields keep the caution; the posture frees the thinking.
Managing the register is not managing the project.
A RAID log full of mitigations is not a delivery plan. The projects we have seen fail slowly were run from the register: a longer list every week, every mitigation on time, and nothing moving. CREW asks what we need, what we are ready for, what we now know and what got better, and each answer is a step the project takes.
Someone has to own it.
"Own the risks" is a job nobody takes. "Who do we need this week, and have we made it easy for them to say yes" is a question someone will answer on Monday. Four questions people can act on get owned; a list of fears gets avoided.
Nothing is lost.
Same fields, same severities, same dates, and a RAID view for the PMO, the funder or the auditor who wants one. If it were only a rename it would not be worth the argument. The rename is what changes the room; the fields are what keep it honest.
If your PMO wants it called RAID, they get RAID. The team that opens it every Monday gets CREW.
Questions
The small print, in plain language.
Is CREW a replacement for RAID or a rebranding of it?
Does calling a risk a readiness item make people under-report it?
Where did the name come from?
Why change something that works?
Can we get the template?
Want Second Pilot on your project?
Second Pilot is our transformation project management: you stay in command, we keep the register, the weekly status and the retrospective, and we make sure it lands. Start with a 30-minute call.