Risk Perception and Analysis

Purpose: To provide a structured opportunity to consider and apply the concepts presented in the notes.

Part A - Elements of Risk Management

1. In your own words - be brief and explicit:

a) What is the difference between pro-active and reactive risk management?

b) Summarise in a logical manner (that is, the way in which the process would be carried out) the process of risk management

c) What are the main types of sources of risk in an organisation?

d) What is a risk register and what information does it contain?

e) Why is there a need to distinguish between general risks and operational risks?

f) How do you know if risk is under successful control?

g) Explain the difference between a risk management system and a systemic approach to risk management

h) Summarise the necessary content of a risk management system.

2. Complete these exercises contained in the notes (up to 250 words each), i.e.

Exercise 2 Explain why LTIFR is not a useful measure of that aspect of risk that is associated with high Consequence values.

Exercise 3 Can you explain why any competent management team would prefer to operate with lower loss and risk costs and with higher risk control costs?

Exercise 4 Consider an organisation with which you are familiar and identify and define the constituents of TCOR.

Part B Relative significance of Risks

1. Choose a type of Risk that is of interest to yourself. Ensure first that you understand what is meant by the phrase "Type of Risk".

a) Define it carefully, ensuring you have a proper understanding of the way Risk is defined.

b) What parameters could be used to describe this Risk in a manner that enabled it to be compared in significance with other Risks of a different nature? Identify them and briefly explain your choice.

c) What parameters could be used to allow this particular Risk to be compared with other Risks of the same type? Identify them and briefly explain your choice.

2. Describe a specific situation in which the above type of Risk might exist and

a) Make use of the Risk Matrix provided in Figure 1, to ‘assess" your chosen Risk in this situation. Explain what you have done and why you did it.

b) Read the relevant notes, the paper by Pickering and Cowley and the provided papers by Peace and by Viner et al to provide you with a basis (along with your personal experience of using it) for writing a critical evaluation of the Risk Matrix idea - both the reality of using the matrix and the very idea of the matrix as something that can be used for this purpose. Approximately 500 words

Part C Risk Analysis

The purpose of this task is to give you some introductory experience in identifying Mechanisms and Outcomes and drawing risk analysis diagrams as a model of the risk in question. The forms these logic diagrams take is important as they are used and understood in this way around the world, so don't invent your own- use the forms of the diagrams provided in your notes

Note that Mechanisms are neither "causes" nor failed control measures. You need to understand exactly what that point means. They are physical possibilities. Outcomes are also physical possibilities.

Read the case study below

i. Define the appropriate Event and draw, with brief written explanation, a Mechanism analysis logic diagram.

ii. Determine and explain your choice of the ‘questions' which you would use to provide structure to the Outcome process and draw an Outcome Analysis diagram for the case based on those questions.

CASE STUDY

A pilot was taxiing his air-force jet when the ejector seat fired, sending him upwards to then crash down onto the airfield, where he died from the impact injuries.

Ejector seats are designed to enable a pilot to escape from a disabled aeroplane. When activated by the pilot (that is the normal way they work) a rocket pushes the seat and pilot out of the aircraft and at the top of the trajectory a parachute deploys to bring the pilot to the ground safely.

This seat was not designed to enable a safe ejection at ground level, as the parachute would not have time to deploy before the seat hits the ground.

Use the search term "RAF Ejector Seat" to discover a host of web sources for information on this tragic case.