Risk mitigation is imperfect by definition. Mitigate doesn’t mean eliminate. It means reduce the impact. “Make less severe or painful,” according to Merriam-Webster. The main reason why risk mitigation is imperfect is that, even when we see risk coming, we don’t know exactly how it’ll manifest. The shape of things to come is extraordinarily fuzzy. Even when the sky is falling, the shadows on the ground tend to keep changing position.
One of the strategies in biosecurity* that was not obvious to me when I was outside was using broad approaches which managed a lot of different risks. Rather than focusing on specific pests, we would look at approaches which could manage many, like ensuring sea containers coming into New Zealand were stored in conditions which reduced levels of contamination.
*biosecurity in the New Zealand sense, which is protecting plant, animal and human health from new pests and diseases
Melanie, this is a great example! When I visited New Zealand, I was impressed by the level of biosecurity at the airport (even my pretty-clean hiking boots went through the agricultural scanner, if I remember!), and there was a place to scrub the soles of shoes prior to boarding a ship to Tiritiri Matanga island.
The calculation of risk and mitigation, a perennial discussion in industrial organisations around the globe. The discussions over "why didn't you see this coming" or "how did you not identify this risk as being more significant than you did" happens in both design and production / service arenas.
You make some very pertinent points about aiming for perfection and the reasoning behind sensible resilience, especially in the context ROI, or its cumbersome cousin Loss of Revenue.
Thanks, Mark! In addition to the after-the-fact "how could you not have known exactly how this would play out, so you could make only the good decisions and avoid all the bad ones?" there's also the beforehand "this all seems too hypothetical to justify stopping a profitable strategy, since our data based on past periods with different circumstances indicates nothing like this has never happened"...
One of the strategies in biosecurity* that was not obvious to me when I was outside was using broad approaches which managed a lot of different risks. Rather than focusing on specific pests, we would look at approaches which could manage many, like ensuring sea containers coming into New Zealand were stored in conditions which reduced levels of contamination.
*biosecurity in the New Zealand sense, which is protecting plant, animal and human health from new pests and diseases
Melanie, this is a great example! When I visited New Zealand, I was impressed by the level of biosecurity at the airport (even my pretty-clean hiking boots went through the agricultural scanner, if I remember!), and there was a place to scrub the soles of shoes prior to boarding a ship to Tiritiri Matanga island.
The calculation of risk and mitigation, a perennial discussion in industrial organisations around the globe. The discussions over "why didn't you see this coming" or "how did you not identify this risk as being more significant than you did" happens in both design and production / service arenas.
You make some very pertinent points about aiming for perfection and the reasoning behind sensible resilience, especially in the context ROI, or its cumbersome cousin Loss of Revenue.
Thanks, Mark! In addition to the after-the-fact "how could you not have known exactly how this would play out, so you could make only the good decisions and avoid all the bad ones?" there's also the beforehand "this all seems too hypothetical to justify stopping a profitable strategy, since our data based on past periods with different circumstances indicates nothing like this has never happened"...