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…
Risk management and cognitive biases
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of putting many people in a room to discuss and assess risks you’d know that not everyone assesses every risk the same way. To some a particular risk is high, while to others it…
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.…
The Great Plague of London and root causes of risk
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…
The Walking Dead and risk management
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…
The Night’s Watch and the Wall of risk management
In the series A Song of Ice and Fire which begins with the book A Game of Thrones, by George RR Martin, we are introduced to the Wall and the Night’s Watch. The Wall is an immense fortification on…
The iPhone 4S of enterprise risk management
Last year Apple released the iPhone 4S and critics pointed out it was pretty much the iPhone 4 with a big-s glued on. Although there were some minor improvements from the iPhone 4, overall it was pretty much the…
Angry Birds risk management
I’ve been playing quite a bit of Angry Birds ever since I got my Samsung Galaxy Tab for my birthday. I love this game. The objective of course is for birds (each with their unique strengths) to destroy the structures…
Maslow, Ned Stark and the Common Good
Last week Ted Coine asked ‘what ever happened to the Common Good?’ At some point people stopped doing the right thing and started putting their individual selfish interests ahead of those of their organizations, countries or kingdoms: UBS, the nation…
Ned Stark. Hand of the King. Chief Risk Officer.
Eddard (Ned) Stark, Lord of Winterfell, is a protagonist in the book A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. He is principled and tells the truth and believes in honour and justice. Ned would make an excellent Chief Risk…