Posts Tagged ‘ risk management ’

Broken windows

November 13, 2012
Broken windows

  Once upon a time there were three little boys left unsupervised while on a field trip when one of them spotted a large crack in a window pane. So he tapped the glass once and nothing happened. Next, the second boy tried his luck and poked the glass as well. Tap tap tap. Again it did not break. Now the third boy approached, looked around, saw that none of the teachers were watching and because his friends didn’t break the window he tapped lightly on the glass with his index finger. Nothing. So he poked harder. No change. Then…

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Too much risk management

October 26, 2012
Too much risk management

  Many people will agree that risk management is important. After we identify and assess a risk, it is treated appropriately and managed to an acceptable level. But is it possible to over-risk manage? Can the treatment become so onerous that people are encouraged to find workarounds thus rendering the controls useless? And if so, why does it happen? Following the bombings of two American embassies in Africa in 1998 new facilities were redesigned and built by “American construction companies with experience in building prisons and military barracks”. Many buildings were moved to less populated areas or on the outskirts…

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Don’t make fun of risk management

August 15, 2012
Don’t make fun of risk management

  There’s an intersection in my neighbourhood that makes me nervous to drive through. Imagine a quiet suburban street that goes north-south which intersects the east-west streets that only have stop signs. I’ve observed that frequently cars travelling east-west roll through their stop or assume it is a four-way stop and the perpendicular traffic will yield to their non-existent red octagon. Literally this is an accident waiting to happen. As a result of the limited trust I have in the drivers going the other way, when going north-south I tend to slow down. And when I do my wife mocks my…

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Bear risk management

July 25, 2012
Bear risk management

My lovely wife wants to take me camping next weekend. I’ve never been camping but understand camping was a part of her life before we met. I’ve explained that I am not averse to camping despite the dirt, cold, sleeping on the ground, canned beans, raccoons, no wifi, poison ivy, bugs and bears. But am quite looking forward to it! While looking for camp sites in central Ontario, Killbear Provincial Park seemed like the choice. With a name that includes the verb ‘kill’ and the noun ‘bear’ I imagine it must be safe! She began doing some research on tripadvisor.com and…

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The winding rivers of risk management

July 11, 2012
The winding rivers of risk management

In the novel Time and Again by Jack Finney, he writes about Einstein’s theory of time travel this way: “we’re mistaken in our conception of what the past, present, and future really are. We think the past is gone, the future hasn’t happened, and that only the present exists. Because the present is all we can see. It’s only natural. (Einstein) said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves behind us. But, it’s there.” Since risk…

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Risk of a short dead dude

July 6, 2012
Risk of a short dead dude

In celebration of La Fête Nationale, Bastille Day, on July 14 here is an example of some poor risk management on the part of the British. The late historian Robert Sobel once noted that the “British created a civil service job in 1803 calling for a man to stand on the Cliffs of Dover with a spyglass. He was supposed to ring a bell if he saw Napoleon coming. The job was abolished in 1945.” Since the “short dead dude” died in 1821 I find it incredibly unlikely that this risk would manifest itself between 1822 and 1945. Napoleon was…

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Confessions of a risk manager

June 27, 2012
Confessions of a risk manager

My 14-year old son recently bought himself a not-so-inexpensive bike with his own money. On the Monday after the purchase he wanted to take the bike to school. I advised against this as he had a pretty lousy bike lock. “C’mon, dad”, he replied, “who’s gonna steal my bike in this neighbourhood?” (After all, we live in the suburbs and not in the worst part of Toronto where ruffians often steal $500 bikes so they can buy drugs and iPhones.) “C’mon ______” is a routine response heard by many risk management professionals and fathers. Bad things happen, but they won’t…

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Passwords, LinkedIn and the White Rabbit

June 7, 2012

With the news this morning that your eHarmony or LinkedIn password was posted on a Russian website, people are frantically changing their passwords today. Or so one hopes. Why all the urgency? Should anyone be concerned that some troublemakers are going to hack your LinkedIn profile and change your Harvard MBA to one from Ohio State (oh the humanity) or change your eHarmony preferred mate preference from athletic to BBW (oh the humanity)? What you should really be worried about is that your stolen password can also be used to access your bank accounts or email. (Oh, I hadn’t thought about that!) In…

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You say risk management and I say shit management

May 3, 2012

I am always amazed that despite the enormous square footage of our planet and the tiny amount of poop produced by a bird that it is possible for my car to get hit. But it occurs despite how unlikely it would otherwise appear.   Shit happens.   We know this because history tells us it does. Shit happening is a universal truth. We do our best to live our lives and manage our businesses but the shit is always there. Look up or look down and it will be there. Call it bad luck, a black swan or an I-told-you-so.…

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Under the Dome risk management

May 2, 2012
Under the Dome risk management

  In Stephen King’s novel, Under the Dome, a small town in Maine becomes suddenly cut off from the outside world by “an invisible barrier of unknown origin”. If that sounds a bit too much like the Simpsons Movie or science fiction for you, simply replace the dome with any other sort of hazard (earthquake, avalanche, flood), force good (and bad people) to fend for themselves and watch mayhem ensue. It was an excellent book. Without getting into the details of the plot and characters it made me think about disaster preparedness: lots of folks had generators but not enough…

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