Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Great Plague of London and root causes of risk

March 27, 2012

One of the hardest parts in documenting your risks is figuring out the root cause of the risk being analyzed. If this is done poorly, we will spend time and money treating the wrong root causes and the risk may only get worse. Take the Great Plague of 1665 that killed 1/6 of London’s population. It was believed that dogs and cats harboured the plague so the Mayor had hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats exterminated. As it turned out, rats and mice carried the fleas that carried the disease (that bit the humans). With their natural predators extinct,…

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The Walking Dead and risk management

March 20, 2012

If there are two things you have noticed about this blog, I often write about zombies and the Moment of Risk Enlightenment. Today’s post combines both. (Note: This post contains spoilers about season two of the Walking Dead.) I was catching up on season two of the “post-apocalyptic” television show The Walking Dead this week. In episode seven the survivors learn that the Greene family barn is full of walkers (zombies). Up to this point the farm represented a safe haven; they had not seen any walkers on the farm since they arrived. Impact and likelihood were low. But was…

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