Tag Archives: Chris Peace

#52 – HOW WELL DO RISK ASSESSMENTS INFORM DECISION MAKERS? – CHRIS PEACE

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Chris Peace pixSometimes, it seems that every newspaper edition, news broadcast or news website carries yet another story about a disaster – an event that might have been avoided by better decision making.

But do we ask whether such decisions were informed by risk assessments?  And if so, how effective were those risk assessments for informing the decision makers about the risks?  Which techniques were used in the risk assessments? Were the results presented in a way that made sense to the decision makers?  Do risk assessors follow a good process and so achieve some consistency in results, or do they just get lucky? Continue reading →

#20 – OF FIRES AND EXPLOSIONS ON TRAINS AND BOATS – CHRIS PEACE

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Chris Peace pixThe trains and boats …
Took you away, away from me.
(Bacharach, 1966)

Hindsight is cheap, as argued by Taleb when he wrote about black swans.

First [the black swan] is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact …. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable. Continue reading →

#18 – THE MORE RISK THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THINGS REMAIN THE SAME – CHRIS PEACE

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Chris Peace pixTHE MORE RISK THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY REMAIN THE SAME
So, the more things change in risk, the more they stay the same. And Lord Chesterfield (1753) wrote “The chapter of knowledge is very short, but the chapter of accidents is a very long one”. We have more guidance in the form of standards but still have disasters – high profile (and front page) as well as low profile. In this short article I explore some of those disasters and some of the consequences. Continue reading →