Scimitar Risk Management was originally developed by Antelope principals Aidan Ward and Susannah Finzi in the early 1990s. It evolved over many years of practice and remains a highly regarded, rigorous approach to managing risk which is as challenging to its practitioners as it is effective in promoting a robust organisation.

The insights which informed Scimitar have provided the basis of almost all of Antelope work with clients over the last 12 years. The system has been used on large programmes over a period of 2 years or more and, in an appropriately scaled-down form, on micro-projects lasting less than 10 days, but where outcomes were business critical.

Scimitar is a structured management system for use when substantial business is at stake. Scimitar recognises that successful risk management enables an organisation to respond in a timely and effective way to the risks that it faces. Very few risk systems work at this level.

The barriers to timely and effective action generally lie in complex stakeholding and over-lapping political agendas. Scimitar forms a group of key stakeholders to resolve the organisational response to key risks, thus clearing the deck for action.

Scimitar is focussed on the achievement of business objectives, not on avoidance of risk and cost. At all times options for how to achieve the underlying business purposes are kept open.

The system captures, connects and manages risks at a project, programme or organisational level. Scimitar identifies risks, manages stakeholders and generates actions to pre-empt or contain risks before they manifest themselves as events. It aims at the continuous effective forecasting and containment of risk events, rather than repairing the damage from risks that have already caused failures.