Risk Treatment

Most organisations engage in major projects during their life cycle, and effective project management is increasingly accepted as a necessary competence in larger companies. Nevertheless, a considerable proportion of projects continue to fail to meet their due dates, exceed budget, do not deliver to specification, miss quality standards, or fall short on customer expectations. The effective management of project risk is a major component of this problem, and central to its resolution; and yet the theory of risk management remains relatively undeveloped and its practice is often poorly executed. This paper examines how the concept of centricity can be applied to some key elements of risk management to develop a conceptual framework that highlights some of the shortcomings of current practice and suggests alternative ways forward. The initial results of applying the model in three major projects in the automotive industry are discussed.

Risk assessment, by itself, does nothing to reduce risk or improve safety. It can only change outcomes by informing the design and management of effective risk control interventions. But current practice in healthcare risk management suffers from an almost complete lack of support for risk control. This first installment of a 2-part series on rebalancing risk management describes a new framework to guide risk control practice: The Process for Active Risk Control.

Although it is probably the best-known Prospective Hazard Analysis (PHA) tool, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is far from the only option available. This paper introduces one of the alternatives: The Structured What-If Technique (SWIFT). SWIFT is a flexible, high-level risk identification technique that can be used on a standalone basis, or as part of a staged approach to make more efficient use of bottom-up methods like FMEA.

In this paper we describe the method, assess the evidence related to its use in healthcare using a systematic literature review, and suggest ways in which it could be better adapted for use in the healthcare industry. Based on the limited
evidence available, it appears that healthcare workers find it easy to learn, easy to use, and credible. Especially when used as part of a staged approach, SWIFT appears capable of playing a useful role as component of the PHA
armamentarium.

Current practice in healthcare risk management is supported by many tools for risk assessment (understanding problems), but none for risk control (solving problems).  The results: a failure to improve safety, and a waste of the investment made in risk assessment.  The Active Risk Control (ARC) Toolkit, available for free, fills this void with a systematic, structured approach to risk control.

Although it is probably the best-known prospective hazard analysis (PHA) tool, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is far from the only option available. This article introduces one of the alternatives: The structured what-if technique (SWIFT). SWIFT is a flexible, high-level risk identification technique that can be used on a stand-alone basis, or as part of a staged approach to make more efficient use of bottom-up methods like FMEA. In this article we describe the method, assess the evidence related to its use in healthcare with the use of a systematic literature review, and suggest ways in which it could be better adapted for use in the healthcare industry. Based on the limited evidence available, it appears that healthcare workers find it easy to learn, easy to use, and credible. Especially when used as part of a staged approach, SWIFT appears capable of playing a useful role as component of the PHA armamentarium.

Flood mapping is still rare in the large cities South of Sahara. The lack of information on the characteristics of floods, the orography of the sites and the receptors hampers its production. However, even with scant information, it is possible to create preliminary risk mapping. This tool can be used by local administrations in decision making on emergency plans or on climate change (CC) action plans. From 2010 onwards, the River Niger at Niamey (1.1 million inhabitants, 123 km 2 in 2014) swelled at unseasonal times. This new river flood pattern can be linked to CC. Each flooding event affected thousands of people and homes. The steady development of areas that did not appear to be flood prone in the past is the main cause of these impacts. These areas require special measures if further impact is to be avoided in the future. This chapter presents the preliminary flood risk map of Niamey 1:20,000. The map was built up using an historic approach (flooded area derived from satellite images) and considering risk (R) as the result of hazard (H) and damage (D), R = H * D. Risk was measured according to two scenarios: medium and high probability of flooding. The inverse of the return period of river and pluvial flooding (H) and the potential damage to buildings and crops according the water depth were used. Information to measure risk components was sourced by daily rainfall and daily discharge of the River Niger from 1946 to 2014, and from high-resolution satellite images (2014). The risk map id entifies hot spots for emergency and CC action planning. The fifth district alone contains 52% of the potential damage. Ninety-nine percent of the potential damage is concentrated within 225 hectars. Reinforcing existing embankments and constructing new ones to protect these areas seems more appropriate than resettlement.

Root cause analysis is perhaps the most widely used tool in healthcare risk management, but does it actually lead to successful risk control? Are there categories of risk control that are more likely to be effective? And do healthcare risk managers have the tools they need to support the risk control process? This systematic review examines how the healthcare sector translates risk analysis to risk control action plans and examines how to do better. It suggests that the hierarchy of risk controls should inform risk control action planning and that new tools should be developed to improve the risk control process.

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Wiley's copyright policies do not allow me to post the published version of the paper, but they do allow me to send out individual copies. So if you don't have access to the Journal of Healthcare Risk Management and would like a copy of this article, please email me at:
alan [dot] j [dot] card [at] gmail [dot] com

Risk management has gained attention to the organizations, project management experts and other stakeholders due to the increasing trend of uncertainties in projects which finally leads to delay in delivery of the project, increasing costs and the customer dissatisfaction. Hence, it is imperative to have a project management system that should be able to contain all the risks and thereby reduce the uncertainties. In the traditional risk management system, the project management team focuses on risk management plan, risk identification, risk analysis and risk treatment so that the pure risks can be controlled by the team work of all the departments. Many organizations fail to recognize the fact that there should be a risk management culture for the company as organizational culture has been highlighted by management experts in modulating strategies to overcome unforeseen contingencies and thereby achieve the objectives. Hence, Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) has been adopted by many companies globally. The study is an attempt to know the impact of the cultural drivers on risk management plan of companies that manage IT projects in UAE.

Root cause analysis is perhaps the most widely used tool in healthcare risk management, but does it actually lead to successful risk control? Are there categories of risk control that are more likely to be effective? And do healthcare risk managers have the tools they need to support the risk control process? This systematic review examines how the healthcare sector translates risk analysis to risk control action plans and examines how to do better. It suggests that the hierarchy of risk controls should inform risk control action planning and that new tools should be developed to improve the risk control process.

Risk assessment is widely used to improve patient safety, but healthcare workers are not trained to design robust solutions to the risks they uncover. This leads to an overreliance on the weakest category of risk control recommendations: administrative controls. Increasing the proportion of non-administrative risk control options (NARCOs) generated would enable (though not ensure) the adoption of more robust solutions. Experimentally assess a method for generating stronger risk controls: The Generating Options for Active Risk Control (GO-ARC) Technique. Participants generated risk control options in response to two patient safety scenarios. Scenario 1 (baseline): All participants used current practice (unstructured brainstorming). Scenario 2: Control group used current practice; intervention group used the GO-ARC Technique. To control for individual differences between participants, analysis focused on the change in the proportion of NARCOs for each group. Proportion of NARCOs decre...

Flood mapping is still rare in the large cities South of Sahara. The lack of information on the characteristics of floods, the orography of the sites and the receptors hampers its production. However, even with scant information, it is possible to create preliminary risk mapping. This tool can be used by local administrations in decision making on emergency plans or on climate change (CC) action plans. From 2010 onwards, the River Niger at Niamey (1.1 million inhabitants, 123 km2 in 2014) swelled at unseasonal times. This new river flood pattern can be linked to CC. Each flooding event affected thousands of people and homes. The steady development of areas that did not appear to be flood prone in the past is the main cause of these impacts. These areas require special measures if further impact is to be avoided in the future. This chapter presents the preliminary flood risk map of Niamey 1:20,000. The map was built up using an historic approach (flooded area derived from satellite i...

South of the Sahara, flood vulnerability and risk assessments at local level rarely identify the exposed areas according to the probability of flooding or the actions in place, or localize the exposed items. They are, therefore, of little use for local development, risk prevention, and contingency planning. The aim of this article is to assess the flood risk, providing useful information for local planning and an assessment methodology useful for other case studies. As a result, the first step involves identifying the information required by the local plans most used south of the Sahara. Four rural communities in Niger, frequently flooded by the Sirba River, are then considered. The risk is the product of the probability of a flood multiplied by the potential damage. Local knowledge and knowledge derived from a hydraulic numerical model, digital terrain model, very high resolution multispectral orthoimages, and daily precipitation are used. The assessment identifies the probability ...

Project Risk Management is used to prevent the failure of projects. Despite its proven use, barriers still exist, which hinder implementation and use by inexperienced persons. One barrier is the lack of systematic support of important steps like the selection of an appropriate risk treatment strategy. The decision of which strategy to select is a challenging task due to the uncertain character of the addressed issue. While the selection of the risk treatment strategy may influence the course of the project, the decision making is left to the risk manager's expertise. Only a few rather elementary methods are available to support the selection of the risk treatment strategy. This paper describes the rationale for a systematic selection of risk treatment strategies. Based on this, a method is developed for the support of this important task. Decision making using the proposed Measure and Failure Cost Analysis (MFCA) method enables the Risk Manager to compare the arising costs of different risk treatment strategies caused by an occurring risk and risk treatment measures. It is based on a de-escalation principle, which analyzes the course of the impact of an event.