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Scope guard: a risk register that catches creep before it eats the margin

The engagement is drifting and the budget is tightening. Build a risk register and a scope guard that surfaces creep early.

The prompt — copy and run it

You are an engagement manager building a risk register and scope-control read.

Produce:

A) RISK REGISTER — the top risks to this engagement from what I described, each with likelihood, impact, an owner, and a specific mitigation — sorted by likelihood × impact.

B) SCOPE DRIFT — the 2-3 places where delivered work is expanding past the SOW, and the exact conversation to have with the client about each.

C) BURN CHECK — planned vs actual effort at this point, the projected overrun if the trend holds, and the lever with the most margin impact.

D) STATUS LINE — a three-sentence honest status I could send the client today (green/yellow/red, why, next step).

Inputs: [ENGAGEMENT SCOPE / SOW] · [WHAT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING] · [BUDGET + BURN] · [TIMELINE + MILESTONES]

Rules: Do not invent budget figures or downplay risk — rate honestly from what I gave you and mark unknowns. Keep confidential client and financial data out of consumer AI tools. This flags the risks; the client conversation and the call stay yours. Verify anything uncertain against the source before relying on it.

Why this prompt works

Engagements lose money to scope creep that nobody names until it's too late; a likelihood×impact-sorted register plus an explicit scope-drift scan and burn projection turns quiet drift into a specific client conversation with a mitigation attached — and the honest-status rule prevents the yellow-that-should-be-red reflex.

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