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Supporting the Municipality of Bordeaux with Urban Resilience sessions

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sun, 27 Oct 2024 21:16:37 GMT

It was a pleasure to join the Municipality of Bordeaux's Resilience Month in Oct 2024 (as a follow-up to joining them a year earlier, in Oct 2023)...

I was delighted to be invited by the Municipality of Bordeaux in France to take part in their resilience month ( le mois de la résilience ) in mid-October 2024 - just as I did the previous year, in October 2023.
We held very interesting in-person discussions about how my Urban 2.0 framework and system can be used by cities and towns around the world, and also the release of the UNDRR Global Assessment Report, Special Report 2024 , which I was delighted to contribute towards.
The municipality of Bordeaux is continuing to pursue some excellent work in urban resilience, which I will be profiling in due course...

My paper about resilient SIDS cities is published

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 20 May 2024 18:53:57 GMT

This paper focuses on ways to implement measures that will foster resilient and dynamic cities in SIDS.

Almost half of Small Island Developing States' (SIDS) populations reside in urban areas. Research into urban resilience and urban planning tends to focus on cities in large nations, and only a relatively small amount of specific research on SIDS cities currently exists. However, much of the general urban resilience research is applicable to SIDS, as long as context is considered.

This paper focuses on ways to implement measures that will foster resilient and dynamic cities in SIDS. Ensuring good policy action to build, maintain and continuously improve these cities is key to achieving sustainable development and resilient prosperity as set out in the Outcome Document of the Fourth International Conference for Small Island Developing States (SIDS4).

Download the paper here .

Participation in the SIDS Future Forum

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 11:14:11 GMT

Helping to shape the future of Small Island Developing States

I am delighted to be one of the presenters at the SIDS Future Forum (with a focus on how to build resilient and dynamic cities on small islands).
With growing challenges like climate change, debt burdens, and dwindling resources, they desperately need an actionable, doable, and ambitious roadmap for the next decade. 2024 is an important year for SIDS, with the SIDS4 conference taking place in May.
You can access details about the Forum on the Island Innovation website, here .

Edition 2 of the Disasters Avoided Newsletter

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 11:10:45 GMT

A Newsletter edition focusing on wildfire

The second edition of the Disasters Avoided Newsletter is live. You can access it here .

Edition 1 of the Disasters Avoided Newsletter

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 17:14:16 GMT

A new Newsletter commences, focusing on avoiding disasters

I am delighted to announce that a new Newsletter has commenced - the Disasters Avoided Newsletter.

You can read edition #1 here . This first edition is an introduction to our work, containing a summary of some of the work we are undertaking, links to case studies and interviews with people about different aspects of avoiding disasters.

Launch of the Disasters Avoided website

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 09:50:03 GMT

A new website focused on how to avoid disasters

I am delighted to announce the launch of a new website, disastersavoided.com. In this website, myself and my colleagues Ilan Kelman and Ana Prados are compiling case studies to describe how disasters have been, are being and need to be avoided through a symphony of action. We are also adding supporting information in the shape of interviews, papers, articles and links to Newsletter editions...

A round table about avoiding disasters in Bordeaux

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 18:51:47 GMT

It was a pleasure to join the City of Bordeaux's resilience week in Oct 2023...

I was delighted to be invited by the Municipality of Bordeaux in France to take part in their resilience week ( la semaine de la résilience ) in mid-October 2023.
We held a very interesting in-person round table discussion with citizens about how disasters can be avoided .
The municipality of Bordeaux is pursuing some excellent resilience work, which I will be profiling in due course...

Can Disasters be Avoided? An MCR2030 webinar

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 21:18:15 GMT

I was delighted to be a Presenter on this UNDRR-UNDP webinar...

I was delighted to be a Presenter on a webinar held on 18 July 2023 led by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), which discussed the question: ‘Can disasters be avoided?’
We reviewed approaches being taken to prevent hazards from turning into disasters, including examples and how innovation is helping countries, cities and communities prevent adverse fallouts from hazard events.
You can access the webinar and download all presentations here .

IRM Infrastructure Newsletter (Feb 23)

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 03:28:49 GMT

My involvement in infrastructure continues, including editing the February 2023 Newsletter of the IRM Infrastructure Group, which you can access here .

IRM Infrastructure Newsletter (Dec 22)

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 11:13:51 GMT

The latest edition of an infrastructure-focused newsletter that I am editor of

I continue to serve on the committee of the IRM Infrastructure Group , and part of my role is to coordinate the Group Newsletter.

The December 2022 edition, which covers a wide variety of infrastructure-related topics, is available here ...

Disasters Avoided - a research project for NASA

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 11:07:44 GMT

A two-year research project for NASA is underway...

I am delighted to be the co-investigator for a two-year project funded by NASA, called Disasters Avoided . It is a project I am working on in conjunction with Professor Ilan Kelman of UCL (London).
The purpose and objective of our work is to inspire action from governments, funders, businesses, the non-profit sector, and the public by compiling, verifying and sharing compelling good-news examples of potential disasters which could have happened, but did not, because action was proactively taken before it was too late. We hope to inspire the use of Earth observations and connecting Earth systems to act cooperatively, at a global and a local level, to avoid disasters.

NASA is of course known globally as an organisation that helps the human race to move forward with space exploration.
They also have an Earth Science team. The Disasters program part of NASA's Earth Science Applied Sciences Program uses Earth-observing data and applied research to improve the prediction of, preparation for, response to and recovery from hazards and disasters around the world.

More information will be made available about this project during 2023, and 2024 (including a dedicated website for the project).

A piece about scenario analysis

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 10:59:22 GMT

Scenario analysis can be a useful tool to think about what could happen...

While we cannot predict the future, the judicious use of scenario analysis and scenario planning can help organisations navigate through challenging times.
I was delighted to write a piece about the uses and benefits of scenario analysis for the Institute of Risk Management Enterprise Risk magazine, Winter 2022 edition, which you can read here ...

Taking part in an Urban Talk for UNDP

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 17:38:04 GMT

An Urban Talk focusing on cities and climate change...

It was an honour and a pleasure to take part in a fascinated Urban Talk on 30 November 2022, organised by the UNDP Europe and Central Asia team.
My piece focused on various aspects of urban resilience and how systems thinking can help us to understand, unpack and design initiatives, programmes and projects to improve the resilience of cities and towns.
We also had extremely interesting presentations from Professor Bharat Dahiya, Director of the Research Center for Sustainable Development and Innovation at the School of Global Studies, Thammasat University, on strengthening disaster risk governance, plus Armen Chilingaryan, Programme Manager, and Elen Sahradyan, Public Policy Innovation Lead, at UNDP Armenia on implementing a more sustainable and fairer economic model, and Ljubica Teofilovska, Project Manager, at UNDP North Macedonia, on better urban future planning.

For more information about this online event, please contact me. A link to the UNDP Europe and Central Asia Urban Talks series summaries is here .

My thanks go to the UNDP team for organising an excellent session - especially to Rajeev Issar for hosting the event, ably supported by Darini Vedarattiname, Cansu Demir and Svetla Baeva.

Taking part in the World@Risk Climate Change & ESG Forum

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 17:27:09 GMT

An active debate about climate change, sustainability and how the private sector can do its part...

I was delighted to interview Sarah Gordon, CEO of Satarla, at the Climate Change & ESG Forum in London on 15 November 2022, organised by the IRM and StrategicRISK.
We talked about the importance of embedding sustainability into business strategy and operations, and how businesses in various sectors are going about this task, and managing their risks as they do so.
For an overall summary of the day, click here for a review by the StrategicRISK team.

My contribution to the UNDP Urban Risk Mgmt and Resilience Strategy

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sat, 04 Dec 2021 19:51:25 GMT

The UNDP Urban Risk Management and Resilience Strategy is announced...

I was delighted, during 2021, to be in a position to assist the UNDP with its formulation of the Urban Risk Management and Resilience Strategy.

This Strategy is aimed at advancing the UNDP Strategic Plan outcomes with ramped action at city and local levels, to help localise the SDGs and protect hard-earned development gains against multidimensional and systemic risks to build resilience.

You can read the Strategy and associated documents here , on the UNDP website.

My recording from the UN-Habitat Innovate4Cities conference 2021

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 23:01:15 GMT

Watch my 12-minute recording about urban resilience

My recording for the UN-Habitat Innovate4Cities conference 2021 is available on the full programme website, here .
This virtual conference has made available a post-event Knowledge Sharing forum for sharing ideas, knowledge and experiences.
I would like to thank the team at UN-Habitat for the opportunity to be involved with this global virtual conference.

A session at the UN-Habitat Innovate4Cities conference

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sun, 10 Oct 2021 01:24:18 GMT

I am delighted to have an agenda item about urban resilience at the UN-Habitat Innovate4Cities global virtual conference, 11-15 October 2021

The UN-Habitat Innovate4Cities virtual conference brings together thousands of people in different roles to discuss how we can improve urban environments around the world. In 2021 it takes place during 11-15 October.
I am delighted to have a session at this event. If you would like to see the recording of it, and/or to find out more about my work in urban resilience and a framework that I have created, please contact me.

A discussion at Project Controls Expo Virtual, Sept 21Expo

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 00:14:36 GMT

Taking part in an online panel debate about major projects risk management

I was delighted to take part in an online forum session at the 3-day online Project Controls Expo Virtual with Mark Franklin, Chris Ritson and Wes Cadby on 15th Sept 2021.

The topics of our discussion and debate ranged from compliance vs risk management, the real benefits of using visual risk tools such as bowties and "risk maps", and whether the culture in project teams is where we want it to be today.

If you are interested in knowing more about our discussion, please contact me.

An interactive virtual workshop on resilience

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sun, 22 Aug 2021 03:05:33 GMT

A virtual workshop held at the Asia Risk & Resilience conference (ARRC 2021)

I was delighted to host a virtual ("mini") workshop at the Asia Risk & Resilience Conference 2021 (ARRC2021) on 19th August (the full agenda of the event is available here ).
In the 90-minute online session, with attendees joining from across Asia, we worked through an interactive real-life scenario of a business operating across Asia that is looking at how to assess, understand and improve its resilience, including the contribution that it makes to society (as part of what I call " cooperative resilience "). The attendees drove the direction of the workshop by voting on the aspects to focus on to achieve the best outcomes for the business, and its stakeholders.
If you are interested to know more about how the online workshop was held and how such sessions could help you, please contact me.

Inflationary times?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 00:05:49 GMT

Inflation may be coming back. What risks does this present?

There is an increasing amount of coverage about the possibility of inflation returning for a reasonable period of time.

News sources such as The Financial Times , The Economist , The Guardian , The BBC and others are all covering the current state of affairs, describing how inflation is rising around the world as economies open and large government fiscal spending continues.

In Europe, Eurozone inflation is up as their economies reopen. In the UK, The Bank of England has warned in May about inflation risk . In the US, the Federal Reserve said in May that the sharpest rise in April in US consumer rices since 2008 is manageable.

Maybe the current inflationary signs are indeed transitory. But maybe they are signs of a long-term change. As The Economist described in February , if inflation persists, global economic policies could be forced to change.

In thinking about risks to investments and the financing of activities we undertake, it will pay to think carefully about this particular financial risk - to think through "ranges of outcomes" and to make an informed decision on how to proceed based on your financial risk appetite.

(Note: access to article links in The Economist and The Financial Times provided in this blog post may be restricted)

New research on counterfactual thinking

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 04:25:35 GMT

I am involved in research with the UNM on the value of counterfactual thinking

I am delighted that Yolanda Lin , Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of New Mexico , and myself are delighted to be working on a new piece of research focusing on the benefits of integrating downward counterfactual thinking into business risk and resilience practices. As part of our research activities we will be publishing a piece in the Frontiers in Earth Science Journal , as part of a collection focusing on “Reimagining the History of Extreme Events”. We will provide an update on our activities soon!

A new piece about "cooperative resilience"

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sat, 20 Mar 2021 00:54:45 GMT

The IRM publishes a feature by me on resilience

I was delighted to provide a piece for the March 2021 Quarterly edition of Enterprise Risk, the magazine of the Institute of Risk Management (the IRM).

You can read my piece here . I hope it is of interest.

Suredis is launched!

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 09:43:45 GMT

A Portal focusing on Sustainability, Resilience and Disaster Risk

I am delighted to announce that Suredis.com is now live.

The SUREDIS Portal is a hub to showcase activities around the world that are improving sustainability, resilience and disaster risk.
Our purpose is to twofold: to highlight improvements already underway, and to provide ideas on new improvements for tomorrow.
Links to articles, papers, reports and interviews discuss challenges the world faces, insights to achieving purposeful change, and examples of collaboration and innovation which are vital for us to build forwards better.

I hope you find this new website of interest.

The Risk Effectiveness Profile

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 09:39:50 GMT

A new website is launched!

I am delighted to announce a new website, riskeffectiveness.com . This website provides information about a "Risk Effectiveness Profile", which I first created in 2017 and have been continually refining. The purpose of the Risk Effectiveness Profile is to help organisations of all types and sizes to ascertain their current state of risk management, and opportunities to improve moving forwards.

I hope you find it of interest. Please contact me for further information about it.

A webinar on Infrastructure and Sustainability

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sun, 29 Nov 2020 04:25:59 GMT

A webinar for the Institute of Risk Management

I was delighted to co-host a webinar on 12th November 2020 with Dr Sarah Gordon (CEO of the Risk Consultancy and Training company, Satarla) about Infrastructure and Sustainability.

You can watch a recording of the webinar here .

Chairing an APAC webinar for the IRM

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 00:16:06 GMT

I was delighted to chair a panel discussion on risk and resilience in APAC recently.

I was delighted to chair an online panel discussion on 12th August 2020 about risk management and resilience in the APAC region for the Institute of Risk Management (IRM), for which I am a Global Ambassador.

We discussed the following points:
1. Business continuity and purposeful resilience – what themes are we seeing in the countries / industries where we are working?
2. Managing fast-changing risks – what are we seeing with regard to how organisations are responding to the new risks they face?
3. Remote working challenges – what are we seeing in terms of threats, opportunities and business continuity / resilience with regard to remote working?
4. The Info Security and Cyber situation – what are we seeing in APAC with regard to information security + cyber risk?

You can watch a recording of the 1-hour webinar here (through YouTube).

A webinar for the AIPM on project risk & complexity

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 23:11:38 GMT

I am co-hosting a webinar on 23rd July for the AIPM...

I am delighted to be co-hosting a webinar about project risk and complexity for the Australian Institute of Project Management (the AIPM) on Thursday, 23rd July.
My co-host, Matt Winchur and I will be providing a framework for identifying and classifying complexity in projects and how you can relate this framework to decision theory and good risk management practices, to achieve good project outcomes.
Details about it, and how to sign up if you are interested, are here .

Thoughts on Purposeful Resilience

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 09:52:45 GMT

People, and organisations, have been demonstrating resilience for a long time. Organisational resilience concerns the ability of organisations – large and small, public and private – to absorb and adapt to changes in our environment. Good resilience allows us to demonstrate true purpose and a true commitment to our values.

The “business imperative” for purposeful organisational resilience

The need for organisations to be demonstrate purposeful resilience is vital in today’s world. COVID-19 has forced many changes upon businesses and the public sector, and some extremely difficult challenges still lie ahead for many. It is fair to say that before the impact of COVID-19, the pace of change was already speeding up –including through advances in new technology and digitisation, changes to our eco-systems, and the need to demonstrate truly sustainable outcomes from the activities we undertake. As businesses and their partners and suppliers up and down their value chains continue to adapt to their fast-changing external environment, approaching resilience in a purposeful way can hopefully ensure they cope with the uncertain times that lie ahead.

When you are resilient, you demonstrate true purpose

A fundamental aspect of organisational resilience, for businesses of all sizes, is being able to demonstrate purpose in times of need.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has taken hold, we have seen many excellent examples of businesses that have reacted quickly to show real and innovative resilience and societal purpose, whilst also appreciating that some businesses and sectors (such as aviation and tourism) have been hit extremely hard by the economic impact of the pandemic.

A small pizzeria in Chicago has adapted its ovens to make face masks for healthcare workers; manufacturers have changed production lines to make ventilators ; pharmaceutical businesses have donated millions of face masks ; retailers have changed their production lines to make healthcare PPE, as have toy companies ; breweries have adapted their production lines to make hand sanitiser.

These are just a handful of examples of businesses that have demonstrated being ‘ready to adapt’ and to make a real difference to society as a whole. This principle of being purposeful applies to other types of unwanted events, such as major floods and earthquakes, or a major Cyber attack. As well as being resilient as an organisation, how can you serve your eco-system, and society when something bad happens?

Some key points about organisational resilience

One way to look at organisational resilience is to start with your organisation’s structure – which includes linkages and bonds with organisations that you work with, and the flexibility that is built into your way of working, internally and externally.

Being resilient does not mean being rigid. Flexibility is key. Just as a tree bends and flexes in the wind, organisations need to bend and flex to adapt to change. An important part of the architecture of organisational resilience is to consider the right degree of flexibility and adaptability to your structure, and your ability to change approach and perhaps to change a number of parts of your operating model and your eco-system in a nimble and agile way (be it how you work with your supply chain, or your ability to change internal policies and procedures to adapt to change).

Consider, for example, the following factors:

1. We exist in an eco-system that is more dynamic and interconnected than ever before – which represents threats and opportunities;

2. The velocity of overall change and the dynamism of risk is increasing, and it will continue to increase (for example, through new technology and digitisation, and the compound effect of eco-system linkages having ever faster effects);

3. Are you watching for potential change, on your radar?

4. Sudden, major events can occur at any time – and to emerge stronger from them we need to be ready to respond and adapt;

5. Whilst we cannot plan everything that we would do in the face of a sudden and unanticipated change, by adopting a good mindset and having good tools and techniques at our disposal, we can adapt and demonstrate true purpose – including with the partners we work with, up and down our value chain, and the communities we serve.

6. You don’t want things to fall through gaps between teams working on different activities as you respond and adapt. This is an example of the need to ensure your organisational design is equipped to allow different teams to work together to achieve overall resilience.

You can’t anticipate or predict everything, but you can be ready to respond

We should use good risk management to identify threats and opportunities that could lead to events that require us to demonstrate resilience, and to anticipate and adapt to change. Many tools and techniques that we use for risk management apply to organisational resilience. For example, tools and techniques such as Stakeholder mapping, Scenario Analysis, Business Impact Analysis, Decision Trees, Bow tie analysis can all be valuable ways to help you work out how to maximise your organisational resilience. These can be coupled with good techniques for Business Continuity Management (BCM).

That said, we cannot anticipate everything. A key focus for our organisational resilience is to be “response ready”, when something does occur.

Various guidelines on resilience exist to help us to prepare, including international standards. ISO 22300 and the accompanying standards 22301, 22313, 22316 plus ISO/TS (Technical Standards) 22317, 22318, 22330 all offer good guidance, and link to other related standards such as ISO/IEC 27001. These standards adhere to a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model, which is good practice in general management and certainly for good resilience. It is worth noting that these standards refer to ‘societal resilience’ – which relates to ensuring purposeful activities for society, as well as the needs of individual organisations. We all exist in an eco-system and we have to understand what this means for our collective resilience.

Good resilience should be stitched into how you operate

Rather than it being a stand-alone activity, or something that requires a large implementation project to put in place, you should be able to design and implement continuous purposeful resilience as part of your regular operations. To do so, you need to keep it simple, efficient and effective.

Is there benefit in looking at “maturity models” of resilience?

Models for resilience and for aspects such as business continuity management do exist. Whether you choose to use them should depend on whether you believe they will add value to your efforts towards continuous improvement.

Purposeful organisational resilience is good business

Focusing on purposeful organisational resilience takes time and effort – and it pays dividends. There are lots of examples out there of how organisations in different sectors have achieved sustainable success through their use of solid organisational resilience principles. If you are able to, take the opportunity to learn from them and, if you can, implement these learnings to enhance your own resilience.

A few thoughts on delivering online lectures

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 07:05:23 GMT

The world is facing an extraordinarily challenging time right now, as all countries implement measures to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic (with so many brave people working in healthcare helping humanity in this time of need).

Just one of a great many elements of societal change that we are all quickly having to adjust to is “remote and distance-based working”. As well as the needs of business and commerce, and the public sector, the education sector is part of this change, all around the world.

This blog post focuses on my recent experience in running university lecture programs online, which is something that the higher education sector around the world is adapting to right now, as they implement social distancing measures in the interests of public health and safety whilst continuing to run courses for students.

I am a visiting lecturer at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), in Sydney, Australia. I have managed modules of Masters programs and conducted Undergraduate lectures for a number of years at this university, and I have also run lectures at other universities.

At the time of writing, I am co-running a Masters module for one of the faculties of the UNSW, with a class of about 45 students. Similar to what is happening elsewhere around the world, we are now delivering our lectures, and other course activities, in a wholly online format.

In business continuity management, we often talk about the importance of “being prepared” for unexpected circumstances. As it happens, we were starting to deliver a small number of lectures online for this course last year, as part of a plan to provide multiple options for student learning. This effort has stood us in good stead for being able to rapidly adapt to the change that has been required as a result of COVID-19.

Right now, we are delivering our course module online using Microsoft Teams and Moodle. Here are a few key points that I have found in delivering online lectures. I am always learning myself in ways to improve online delivery, I hasten to add. I hope these points may be of use to people for holding online lectures, and in other situations where, for example, long training sessions in a business environment need to be delivered:

1. Ensure rapport – if you have been able to run face-to-face lectures with your class beforehand, this helps to establish a rapport with your group (in today’s current environment, this is of course not always possible).

2. Use trusted technology – I am using Microsoft Teams as my platform (per the UNSW technology options to me). Other online meeting solutions are available (and being used a lot right now), of course. Ensuring IT security is in place is important – you don’t want your lecture to be “bombed”. For me, I am familiar with using Teams for consulting work, so this is a platform I am comfortable with.

3. Keep the lecture interactive –

a. It’s good to initially start with video open to everyone, to say “hello”. If you have a large class, it is best to ask people to switch off their video after introductions.

b. It can be a good idea to set a good background when you are using your camera (whether in-built in your computer, or an external one). For example, i f you are using the Teams app and if you have the permissions to do so, you can set your “background” to be blurred behind you , or you can insert a background image, which can help to “mix up a bit” your background (similar to how TV newsrooms sometimes approach things).

c. Students are very good at using technology, and they are all good at "being on mute" whilst you run through key lecture points. You do want to ensure that you engage them, of course, just as you would in a face-to-face lecture.

d. Intersperse the lecture with questions, and perhaps short voting polls through your technology platform.

e. Many technology platforms (including Teams) have the option (if you have rights / set it up) of a “ whiteboard function ”; this can help to capture notes, draw elements and sketch examples with your students throughout the lecture.

4. Take some breaks during a long lecture – if your lecture is over 90 minutes in duration, consider splitting it up into sections. For example, breaking at 60 or 90 minutes for a 15-minute “tea break” can be a good idea. I find that people always "return to the virtual class" in a timely fashion when we do this.

5. Record the lecture, if you can –

a. Students may want to watch / listen to the recording of the lecture afterwards to recap on certain points (e.g. to help towards assignments), and therefore it helps if your technology solution has a recording feature.

b. Depending on how recording has been set up, it may be streamed onto a Streaming service (e.g. Teams can stream onto Microsoft Stream ).

Will we see a long-term increase in the online delivery of university lectures in future? This remains to be seen, but one thing we do know is that online services are an important medium for maintaining continuity of services in higher education at the moment.

Regards,

Gareth

The terrible bushfires in Australia in the summer of 2019/2020

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT

The nation has witnessed devastating fires in the summer of 2019/2020. What will the impacts be moving forward?

Devastating bushfires, coupled with an ongoing drought, have made it an exceedingly worrying time for Australia at the moment.

The bushfires across Australia during the summer of 2019/2020 are unprecedented in their scale. They have caused widespread devastation and catastrophic damage. Finally, in February 2020, the impact of desperately-needed rain across the Eastern states has meant that the bushfires that have been raging so ferociously are now contained (though the RFS will remain vigilant for any change).

People have tragically lost their lives in New South Wales and in Victoria , and South Australia (including on Kangaroo Island ). A very large number of people have been, and continue to be, directly impacted by the bushfires in various ways – from losing their properties and belongings to having their livelihoods badly affected. It has been, and remains, hugely stressful for everyone impacted. A huge number of animals have died in the bushfires (estimates of exact numbers vary, but we know it is a large number), and the destruction of millions of hectares of habitat is truly tragic. The firefighters who continue to so bravely to fight the gigantic blazes, and all the public services who are responding so resolutely to the situation, deserve our utmost support, our thanks and our sincere gratitude.

Various fundraising initiatives are in place to provide assistance, for example:

The Red Cross

WWF Koala fund

The RSPCA

People right across the nation, aided by generous assistance from overseas, are rallying together and raising incredible amounts of money and donating goods and services to support the effort to overcome this unprecedented situation. People are also demanding that the federal government does more to provide support and to tackle the impact on the country of climate change.

Some links to articles and information on what’s happened

This article published by the ABC on 9th February 2020 describes Australia's relationship with fire, and lessons for the future.

This article published by the ABC on 19th January 2020 shows the extent of the devastation caused in the Southern Highlands area of New South Wales (NSW), some 100km southwest of Sydney (they were given access to an RFS helicopter for a flyover of the region, which has been decimated by the catastrophic Green Wattle Creek and Morton fires).

This article published by The Guardian on 17th January 2020 describes the impact of the rainfall that finally arrived in mid-January.

This article published by the BBC on 13th January summarises the overall situation as of mid-January.

This article by The Conversation on 3rd January allows you to track what is going on with the bushfires across Australia.

This article published by The Guardian on 8th January describes the devastation that has been caused to Kangaroo Island (note: this article includes images of dead animals).

This article published by The Guardian on 5th January describes the significant damage that has been caused along the South Coast of NSW.

This article published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 3rd January contains thoughts from firefighters who were involved in the Black Saturday firefighting that occurred in the State of Victoria on 7th February 2009.

This article published by The Guardian on 3rd January describes how science can help us to combat climate change.

This article published by The Guardian on 2nd January describes the struggles of tens of thousands of people who were fleeing from bushfire-ravaged areas of the south-east Australian coast.

This article published by The Guardian on 31st December 2019, and this article published by The Guardian on 21st December show the extent of the impact at that time, in pictures.

This article published by the BBC on 20th December describes some facts and statistics of the ferocious fires burning.

This article published by Bloomberg on 17th December describes an approach to the bushfire problem that draws upon ancient indigenous methods.

This article published by The Guardian on 24th December reveals that the federal government was warned by the Department of Home Affairs after the May election that Australia faced more frequent and severe heatwaves and bushfires, and that livelihoods would be affected without effective action on climate change.

This article published by The Guardian on 17th November describes the research undertaken in the 1980’s and the 1990’s by scientists who predicted the increased intensity of bush fires in Australia due to a changing climate.

The bushfire problem across Australia is growing increasingly worse with each year that passes, with compelling scientific evidence supporting this statement. What can be done to protect people, wildlife and the environment of the world’s driest inhabited continent? What long-term, sustainable measures should be taken to reduce the risk in future? What does it mean for businesses, large and small? What does it mean for sport and other outdoors activities that are at the heart of the Australian way of life? There are so many challenges to address.

The drought in Australia

As this article from the ABC confirms , 2019 was the hottest and driest year for Australia on record.

Some key contributing factors to these events

This article published by The Conversation on 14th January 2020 provides a very good overview of the way that Australia’s climate is changing.

Australia’s climate has been scientifically proven to be warming up since the 1970s . As this has happened, fire conditions have become more extreme, and the length of the fire season has been extended across large parts of the country.

Human-induced warming has been evident in Australian temperatures since 1950 . This has contributed to a long-term trend of increasingly dangerous fire weather conditions in many areas of the country.

As the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC), the BBC and other news broadcasters have outlined , the Indian Ocean Dipole (which is a similar ocean trend to the la Nina and El Nino effects in the Pacific) in 2019 is said to be a key influencing factor to the situation in Australia, influencing the drought and the devastating bushfires. The dipole's positive phase in 2019 was the strongest for six decades and has led to warmer sea temperatures in the western Indian Ocean region, with the opposite in the east. The unusually strong positive dipole has created higher-than-average rainfall and floods in eastern Africa, and droughts in south-east Asia and Australia.

Climate change: new temperature records are set in Australia in 2019 & 2020

On Wednesday, 18th December 2019 Australia recorded its hottest-ever day , with an average maximum temperature recorded of 41.9C. On Saturday, 4th January 2020 the temperature hit 48.9C in the Sydney suburb of Penrith .

The poor air quality across many parts of Australia

In the areas directly impacted by the bush fires, the air quality has been terrible. Some days have eerily looked like night-time .

This article published by ABC News on 3rd December 2019 describes the best type of mask to wear when one is outside in smoke haze conditions.

Canberra and the ACT endured extremely poor air quality for days on end in January 2020. The smoke haze even travelled across the Tasman Sea, to New Zealand.

The NSW government's Air Quality Index data shows that, since late October, the number of days when the index exceeded 100 – when exposure is unhealthy – have outnumbered clear days in Sydney, Newcastle and the Illawarra region. Index readings above 2550 (VERY unhealthy) have been recorded in Sydney, while the Monash monitoring site in Canberra showed an extreme 5185 at 8pm on New Year's Day.

This article by The Guardian published on 18th January 2020 highlights the major effect it has had on so many people, and the long-term effects of breathing P2.5 particles will not be known for some time.

This article by The Canberra Times on 15th January 2020 by a historian of air pollution describes the realities being faced, and how people have responded to past situations of poor air quality.

I have lived in Sydney since January 2008 and I have never seen the levels of air pollution in the city that we have seen in the summer of 2019/2020. People who have lived in Sydney all their lives tell me the same thing. It has of course been much worse for people who live closer to the bushfire areas in NSW and in the other States of Australia, and it has been particularly challenging for people with respiratory problems, the very young and the elderly.

It was reported that, from 1st November to 20th December 2019, 28 days were considered to be “hazardous” in air quality . Like many people, I am ready to wear a P2 mask outside when the smoke haze is very bad (as has been the case, for example, on 8th and 12th January 2020).

Are we now at a tipping point about climate change in Australia?

This article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10th January 2020 sums up the points that many people who live in Australia are thinking about nowadays.

The country is truly seeing the effect of climate change play out – and we are seeing ominous warnings about the future, if we do not change how we live and how we run our economy.

Climate change (UN SDG 13) is arguably at the forefront of the minds of just about every person who lives in Australia (as it also is elsewhere around the world).

Will we see new policies that have positive impacts towards the climate at a federal and state level in Australia? Many people in Australia have good ideas, and there is much that can be learned from many other countries in how to respond as well.

The catastrophic bushfires of the summer of 2019/2020 continue to have many impacts on people, communities, and the economy. Regarding the economy, businesses large and small in many sectors – from tourism to insurance – are facing significant financial consequences. How this will play out over time remains to be seen.

As Australia begins the recovery from these terrible fires, our business-as-usual approach needs to be rethought. There are so many aspects to take into account, and it will take a considerable effort by lots of stakeholder groups working together to agree a sustainable way forward.

Business Continuity aspects of smoke haze

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 09:32:13 GMT

The City of Sydney endures yet another day of smoke haze...

Sydney endures yet another day of severe smoke haze .
The situation in the outer areas, with the bushfires, is extreme. The heroic efforts of the Rural Fire Service deserve our admiration and support.
In the City, building fire alarms have been activated, as smoke has infiltrated (as it inevitably does) into the ground floors and air systems.
Are businesses thinking about how they should be responding with good business resilience and good business continuity planning, and focuses on the health and wellbeing of their employees and those that work for them as partners?
Working from home in such conditions is a solution for many people, but not everyone.
At a City level, this article describes how Beijing approaches the matter nowadays .
In terms of long-term planning, are air filtration systems in buildings suitable to deal with these types of events?
As climate change continues, matters such as this will need to be addressed more and more often.

An engaging discussion about Decision Trees

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 28 Nov 2019 08:52:39 GMT

I run a CPD event for Engineers Australia in Sydney on using Decision Trees...

I was delighted to hold a discussion with a group of engineers from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines about the Decision Trees tool and technique on Wednesday, 27th November 2019 at the Engineers Australia Head Office in Sydney. I always appreciate the opportunity to take part in engaging discussions with people about Decision Trees (and, indeed, other risk tools and techniques). They can be a really useful way to help us think through options available to us, and what paths could lead to the best outcomes to achieve our objectives.

A slide deck summary of one approach to using Decision Trees is available on my website, here .

Running a hackathon in Hong Kong

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 23:55:07 GMT

Another hackathon event proves popular...

I had the honour of hosting a hackathon event in Hong Kong in November 2019. We had a great group of participants from a range of organisations in different industries.
Our focus in this hackathon was on how to use risk management to achieve purposeful and long-lasting change, in this case focusing in particular on embedding sustainability into how we work.
The group came up with some terrific ideas and proposals, which I hope will prove valuable as they continue to help their organisations to achieve their objectives.

Running a hackathon in Singapore

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 19 Nov 2019 13:16:41 GMT

Risk Managers think through how to truly address Risk & Sustainability

It was a real pleasure to run a "Risk & Sustainability hackathon" training event in Singapore today, working with the StrategicRISK team and the team from Zurich. We had about 40 people from various organisations in Singapore, and their outputs from the series of fast-paced exercises they were set really were excellent!
This particular hackathon that I have designed puts people into a challenging situation in which they need to work out how to use risk management to achieve strategic sustainability objectives in the face of challenging short-term demands.
It's always fun to hold events like this...

Eliud Kipchoge manages risk to run a sub 2-hr marathon

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sat, 12 Oct 2019 19:35:53 GMT

An incredible athletic achievement and milestone is reached

Today, a feat that I never thought would happen in my lifetime occurred - I saw a human run a marathon in under 2 hours.
This astonishing feat was achieved by the amazing long-distance runner, Eliud Kipchoge .
I am a marathon runner myself, and I always aim to finish in around the 3-hour mark. I cannot fathom achieving a marathon in under 2 hours, or indeed anything close to that mark.

Any marathon runner will tell you that there's a lot that can happen during a marathon. You can of course be bang on form and run a good race. Or, something can happen - an injury of some sort - that impacts your ability to keep going. Or it can just get hard - especially in the mid-30 kms - and your brain can start thinking some strange things.

This particular incredible feat was achieved through the application of military-like precision planning (as various news articles describe ). That's for sure. Yet it ultimately needed the runner - Eliud himself - to manage his risks throughout the duration of the 42.195km distance. The fact that he was able to do so, and be smiling and appearing in such good shape at the end of it, is testament to good planning and training, and excellent management of risks.

Whilst it's not the official world record, it is still an absolutely remarkable feat.

Kipchoge - a very modest sports person - said he knew within the first kilometre than he would achieve his objective. He dismissed comments of mid-race presented brief troubles. “That’s untrue,” he said.

It seems incredible that the four-time London marathon winner trained for it for just four months. His Saturday morning pre-race breakfast? Oatmeal.

Being the MC for RIMS Australasia

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 07:04:06 GMT

I was delighted to host RIMS Australasia on 25 and 26 Sept 2019

I was delighted to be the Master of Ceremonies (MC) for the RIMS Australasia conference that was held on 25th and 26th September 2019 in Sydney.
There were so many interesting and insightful presentations covering a wide range of different aspects and elements of risk management.
Congratulations to the RIMS team for putting on such an enlightening event!

A counterfactual risk analysis workshop

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 22:43:59 GMT

A fascinating counterfactual risk analysis workshop in Singapore

I had the pleasure of attending a workshop organised by the Earth Observatory of Singapore at the Nanyang Technology University (NTU) this week, to discuss counterfactual risk analysis. We went through tools and techniques to review past events and how to look for black swans, using various case studies as examples.
Several good outcomes were agreed on the benefits of using counterfactual thinking - stay tuned for more updates...

Risk Management in action at the 2019 Tour de France

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 02:38:19 GMT

Anticipating and adapting a a major safety risk turn into an event

I have written about Pro cycling in an article last year , which focused particularly on Team Sky, now known as Team Ineos. Well, they’ve done it again, with a First and Second place at this year’s Tour de France. Congratulations to this year’s Tour de France winner, Egan Bernal .

I’d like to highlight an event that occurred during the race which required good risk management and quick, effective decision-making on the part of the Tour organisers, ASO. The event happened on Stage 19 (the third-last stage) in the French Alps on Friday, 26th July. Localised hail and snow in the French Alps suddenly turned what was already a dramatic stage (in terms of the racing) into an unprecedented one . Although it was dry as the riders descended a large col, high in the mountains of the Savoie department, conditions suddenly became extreme further down the mountain due to this sudden, localised storm. The race organisers responded swiftly, and dealt with it by stopping the stage short of the finish line in the interests of safety. Although what happened was highly unlikely to occur, it was still a foreseeable event, not a “black swan” (or an “unknown unknown”) and good preparation meant that it was dealt with safely and quickly.

Good risk management in action – anticipate and adapt.

A poignant Business Continuity reminder...

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 04:05:22 GMT

The Telstra outage – a reminder of planning for disruption

On Thursday, 11th July 2019, retailers across Australia suffered from an inability to accept card payments through what’s called the Eftpos transaction system, as a result of disruption to the national telecoms provider, Telstra. Bank ATMs wouldn’t accept cards, either.

Here’s an example news report of the problem .

I experienced the impact in a very minor (insignificant, really) way, whilst shopping at my local Woolworths supermarket in Sydney. Along with other shoppers, I had to queue at the few manned tills that still exist (they’ve been replaced by automated tills nowadays), and sign a receipt for payment. My inconvenience in paying for my goods was trivial. Many businesses, from cafes to supermarkets and major retailers were, however, severely impacted. After all, most of us take using our cards for payment for granted and increasingly, we don’t carry much cash with us.

Yet in order to be resilient, and minimise potential disruption like this, businesses that rely on using card transaction systems should plan for things like this as part of their business continuity planning. They should think about “reactive controls to deploy” in the event of a problem like this occurring (the bowtie is a good tool to identify controls).

I wonder how many shops were prepared to immediately, and effectively, respond to a “card transaction system outage” (whatever the cause). For example, is a fail-over option possible? Is there a cost-benefit to having good advisory signage in the back office area that is “ready to use at a moment’s notice”, to advise customers (as opposed to hastily-prepared cardboard signs – like the one in the photo, which was taken at a major supermarket)?

For large businesses such as retailers, do you have a tried and tested mass communications tool to quickly advise key people across your organisation what to do in the event of a major disruption like this? This could include advice to be vigilant and check the signatures of people who pay with cards at manned tills.

The following day in central Sydney, I happened to ask people who work in large retail chains about this disruption. I was curious to know what their resilience measures were. Some businesses were unable to take card payments for 20 hours (as they told me).

My main point is this: a disruption event like this can be anticipated and planned for. Other disruption events may be harder to anticipate, but with careful thought they can be anticipated, and response plans prepared. When measures are agreed up front in a Business Continuity Plan, you can communicate and test these measures to be ready to deploy them quickly when required.

If you think about and plan for disruption, you can quickly act to minimise the effects it has when it occurs.

Large fines for data breaches

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 04:29:06 GMT

Large fines for data breaches are hitting home...

We all know about stories of data breaches in 2018 (and likewise in 2019), and indeed before. Here's a list of major data breaches in 2018 .

British Airways and Marriott Hotels are facing large fines for data breaches that occurred in 2018.

Who’s next in line to be hit with a large GDPR-based fine, I wonder.

And what about businesses, large and small, who have smaller breaches, and could be hit potentially with a fine of 4% of their turnover?

Are businesses adequately protecting themselves, and are they prepared and resilient to respond to data breaches / hacks if they occur? How proactive are they being about this…?

Speaking at the StrategicRISK APAC Forum 2019

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sat, 01 Jun 2019 06:09:35 GMT

I was delighted to be one of the Speakers at the StrategicRISK APAC Forum 2019, in Singapore on 30th May.

I talked about risk appetite, and how to use it as an effective risk management tool. When it is used well, risk appetite can be a good way to ensure you have a good culture of decision-making, with clarity on what risks need to be taken and managed.

Risk appetite can be defined as "the amount of risk that we are willing to seek or accept in pursuit of our objectives, and we can use this facet of risk management to see how aligned people’s decision-making is to achieve what should be aligned objectives."

Risk Managers and Risk teams should make sure that they talk to lots of different people, from the C-suite through to operations, functional managers and frontline managers about their appetite for risk. If you’re talking to them and having simple discussions about risk you will pick up on important things. That’s the good thing about risk appetite - you can keep it simple when you talk with people. Engage with them about what objectives they are working towards, and ask this question: So, what’s your risk appetite for the risks you face to achieving your objectives?”

A risk team should be talking to people across their organisation because normally we’re one of the few functions that can actually do that. We should be making sure that what board and execs think (which may take the form of a formal Risk Appetite Statement, or it may not) is aligned all the way through to front line, whilst appreciating the different priorities that different teams have.

The span of discussions ranges from what the board team is thinking about through to the kinds of risks that people across the organisation are taking and managing in all areas. You want to help people to achieve their objectives.

Transparency and visibility is important. This relates to organisational culture and decision-making, and alignment on what a strategy is and how to deliver it, because if you have a good culture then people will have these discussions (which can sometimes be tough and challenging), to help ensure critical decision-making in a de-biased manner.

Understand decision options with Decision Trees

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 08:53:11 GMT

An important part of a Risk professional’s job is to help people make good, risk-informed decisions.

Have you used Decision Trees before? They have been around for decades, and they stand the test of time (for an example of their longevity, read this Harvard Business Review article dating from 1964). Creating a Decision Tree when you need to review various options can help you understand, in a visual way, the “choice paths” available to achieving your objectives. It can help you work out what your decision paths are when you face several possible courses of action, and to understand how different scenarios could occur, in order to determine the best decision to make.

The visualisation of decision-making makes a Decision Tree a useful tool to see the uncertainty we face. Picturing possible outcomes in a Decision Tree can help us assess our degree of comfort in different outcomes occurring (which relates to what we see as our risk appetite).

If you have data to support different decision options, you can include this data into a Decision Tree. IT-based Decision Tree tools such as Palisade’s Precision Tree can assist you to quantify outcomes of different paths, which can help you to understand the magnitude of these outcomes.

For more information about Decision Trees, feel free to get in touch to have a discussion.

We manage risk. Do we seize enough opportunities?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 08:51:57 GMT

ISO 31000:2018 defines risk as “ the impact of uncertainty on objectives ”.

Uncertainty can result in upsides and downsides, yet most people think of risk as the chance or impact of something negative occurring. Whether it is financial risk, safety risk or production/operational risk, mention this word to someone and the chances are they will think of downsides, problems and negative potential outcomes.

Clearly, there are many (negative) threats that we need to identify, evaluate and manage on an ongoing basis. Yet there are also many opportunities we should seek to seize and capture. Perhaps opportunities are seen as “the reason why we are in business”. Risk teams can help people to ensure their opportunities are fully realised. Perhaps a performance metric that a Risk team can use is: are we doing enough to materially help the people we work with to seize opportunities?

There are many examples where risks can be realised as opportunities, including:

1. Hold meaningful and thought-provoking discussions about risk appetite to seek the right types of opportunities that match what your organisation stands for.

2. In Risk workshops, make sure you spend enough time looking at how to make opportunities happen; don’t just focus on negative threats (unless the workshop is specifically required to focus only on the negatives).

3. When you help people make risk-informed decisions, look at ways to seize opportunities as well as how to manage threats.

4. When you talk about chances (probabilities) of success / succeeding with a target, describe them as having “between a 50 and 70% probability of success” rather than “a 30 to 50% chance of failure”.

Can you turn a threat into an opportunity? Sometimes. The next threat you face, think about whether, if you changed your approach, it could be turned into an opportunity. It’s not always possible, but it’s possible more often than you might think.

In this 30-minute YouTube clip , independent Risk Consultant Alex Sidorenko interviews Hans Læssøe , a fellow independent Risk Consultant and former Senior Risk Director of LEGO, and discusses how to understand and thrive on uncertainty. It includes some guidance from Hans on seizing opportunities (which includes understanding your risk tolerance and appetite to ensure you leverage your opportunities fully).

Some aspects of decision-making

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 08:50:33 GMT

The more uncertainties you are aware of, the more chance you have of making a good decision

Here’s something that may appear counterintuitive: you will probably make a better decision about something when you have a greater awareness of uncertainties that can affect the outcome.

Why would this be the case?

The more we are aware of uncertainty, the more likely we are to think about how things could change (in a good or a bad way – not just in a negative sense).

As I have covered in one of my Newsletters in 2018 which looked at the psychology of risk and decision-making , we have a tendency to:

- Believe we know more than ‘the facts’ that are in front of us

- Cling to our ‘anchors’ (for example, our experiences, good and bad)

- Seek confirmation of our beliefs (confirmation bias), rather than a rejection of them

We’re less likely to be overconfident when we are more aware of uncertainty. It helps to reduce the risk of falling into the “confirmation bias trap” – that is, to seek answers that justify our gut feel. We're more likely to seek out differing opinions and alternate views, which can help us de-bias our decision-making.

If you are interested in reading about how uncertainty applies to long-term, complex decisions, Steven Johnson’s book, Farsighted: How We Make The Decisions That Matter The Most , provides an in-depth look at the challenges and difficulties of making long-term decisions. For a review of Johnson’s book by Adam Grant in the New York Times, click here (note - access permission rights may apply).

Take the Outside View as well as the Inside View

Have you heard of the technique of “looking outside as well as inside”? Here’s a good piece on “the inside view vs the outside view” on the Persuasion Reading List website . It describes the importance of broadening your viewpoint ‘outside of your specific sphere of activity’ when you have a decision to make, preferably as a first step rather than a final check.

Here’s a snippet from the article:

The Inside View is how we view our own situation, relying on our narrow experiences and intuition to make decisions. We think our sample size of one is representative of a large sample of similar situations, and therefore we can ignore those other situations. The Law of Small Numbers tells us that Small Numbers (small sample sizes) do not act like large numbers (large sample sizes).

The Outside View is how we view other peoples’ situations. From the outside , these are common story lines. We can expand the frame of reference and pick up on patterns. We focus on the common threads and common outcomes. We remove emotion. We make better informed decisions.

You can improve your decision making by taking the Outside View into account in your decisions:

1. Sample : Gather a large sample of similar situations. (Mentors and friends are great resources to get some input for the outside view of your own situation, and larger sample sets are always best)

2. Analyse : Analyse how things played out in those similar situations, focusing on the decisions made and their resulting effects

3. Adjust : Adjust your planning to meet the statistical outcomes, not your own intuitive expectations

4. Iterate : Continually adjust your planning and execution in the face of new information or evidence. This last concept has really taken off in the age of small start-ups that ‘pivot’ to new models in the face of new information.

It’s easy for us to default to the inside view. The next time you have a decision to make, try to start with taking the outside view.

Use data properly

We all know that mathematics, algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are enormously useful tools to help us make decisions. Adages such as “listen to opinions, act on data” come to mind, as do techniques such as conditional probability.

There isn’t enough space in this blog post to write about the specifics of using data, algorithms and AI. The main point I want to stress is: use good data to help you make an informed decision.

Make the decision right

We know that making decisions is often hard and difficult.

The psychologist Ellen Langer gives this advice on making tough choices: “Don’t make the right decision. Make the decision right.” We never have enough information to make “the best choice”. All we can do is make the best of the choice we make.

Here’s an interesting 15-minute interview with Langer about “the psychology of luck and mindfulness”.

Coming back to my earlier point, there’s plenty of evidence on how recognising uncertainty plays an important part in good decision-making. Here’s a 40-minute webinar with Professor Reidar B. Bratvold of the University of Stavanger, Norway, in which he discusses a modelling approach that builds uncertainty into decision-making.

Think about your knowns and your unknowns

One more aspect about decision making – remember the Johari window when you make decisions. The Johari Window, a decades-old psychology technique, can help you to remind yourself / your team:

· whether you have uncovered the key things you should know or be aware of when making a decision

· whether you are unwittingly hiding things from others involved in a decision-making process (maybe you simply didn’t think to mention some points to others)

· whether some people involved in a decision have important things to contribute, but they are not in a position to do so

I mentioned earlier that one of my Newsletters from 2018 contains interviews with various Thinkers and Leaders, including cognitive psychologists, about decision-making and de-biasing your decisions. You can read it here .

What is a good profession to learn from?

A profession that demonstrates good decision-making is science. Scientists conduct experiments to prove or disprove a hypothesis, and they are constantly questioning themselves and using experiments and samples to understand how best to make a decision. We can all learn from the approach that scientists take.

Can we get serious about using AI to understand risk?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sat, 24 Nov 2018 07:30:19 GMT

We hear an d read a lot about artificial intelligence and machine learning nowadays. What does this mean for how people articulate and think through risk in their organisation?
A couple of things spring to my mind:
1. Surely we should start to use machine learning to simplify how we ask people to describe their risks. Machine learning can sift through and categorise risks based on people adding text information - i.e. let them simply describe their risks, and get machine learning to work out how to categorise it.
2. Machine learning can be used to detect risks (i.e. uncertainties - positive and negative) within the regular operations of an organisation. It can spot things that may be worth adding to a risk register which may otherwise be missed.
3. Machine learning can spot potential synergies and inter-relationships better than people can (or at least, we struggle to find the time to do this).

We really should be looking at this type of application of technology sooner rather than later. It could generate significant value for organisations.

Quantitative Risk Analysis - is it growing in popularity?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 17:48:42 GMT

I often see opportunities to use Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) as part of my work with clients. Sometimes, people are already familiar with it, at least in concept. Other times, people know nothing about it - which provides me with an opportunity to discuss it with them and to show them the benefits of applying it.

I find QRA beneficial for the clients I work for on numerous fronts, including:
1. It helps people to think through ranges of outcomes (which is an important part of thinking through uncertainty and risk)
2. It gets people to think about quantifying risk, rather than being generic about it
3. Simulations and statistical models, when done well, help people to make risk-informed decisions

When I say "QRA", I am referring to Monte Carlo Analysis, of course, and I am also referring to "decision optimisation". There is a wealth of possibilities that people can unlock by taking the time to understand how QRA can help them to unlock value by optimising the decisions they should take.

QRA is not a crystal ball, of course. Done well, it helps people to think through ranges of outcomes to the uncertainties that they face, and to apply some intelligence to testing their assumptions and looking at decision options.

If you are interested in finding out more about how I approach QRA, please contact me.

Disaster Risk Management & Enterprise Risk Management

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 16:19:13 GMT

Are there opportunities for knowledge sharing across them?

There are many different fields of expertise and application in risk management. Two broad fields are Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), which is mostly applied in business and the private sector, and Disaster Risk Management and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRM / DRR), which is focused on reducing and managing the risk of a major disaster that may affect many people (such as a major flood or an earthquake).

I liaise with practitioners who work in ERM and practitioners who work in DRM. I think that there are elements of synergy and opportunities for collaboration between people who work in these areas of risk management.

It would seem at first glance that the objectives that both practices focus on are different. The governing standards are different (for example, DRM uses the Sendai Framework 2015-2030, whereas ERM uses ISO 31000:2018 and COSO ERM amongst others), and the definition of risk in ERM is different to DRM. Nonetheless, opportunities for learning exist.

For example, business and the private sector is arguably going through greater, and faster, change than ever. Effective ERM can make a big difference to performance and outcomes. There could be some valuable pointers and ideas that people who deliver ERM could learn from DRM. For example, the use of scenario analysis in DRM could be something that ERM practitioners could find interesting.

In DRM, some practitioners say they need to re-calibrate their approach, to take into consideration scenarios that are worse than they would have planned for in the past. For example, drought patterns are changing, deforestation is changing, and the impact of rapid urbanisation. There is a pressing need to understand the evolving risks involved to everything that is happening, and how best to approach and deal with them. The approach that DRM practitioners take as they change their focus could perhaps benefit from looking at the tools and techniques that are used in ERM (such as decision-making techniques, investment analysis, controls design and the use of bowties).

Hopefully there are opportunities for people who work in ERM and DRM to come together and share their experiences and practices in knowledge sharing environments.

Will we start using Alexa-style assistants soon...?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sun, 03 Jun 2018 01:52:40 GMT

Are we going to see a “ Hey Alexa – what are our most pressing risks today ?” type of “Ask the machine” future at some point?

A discussion by Gareth and Chris Corless

In short – yes, although perhaps it will be a different-named tool – hopefully one with a positive-sounding name to help us take risk!

We are already seeing chat bots in place to take care of some basic questions about insurance, as the team at Google has advise ( see this article in StrategicRISK ).

With the right infrastructure in place, we can use a voice-activated assistant to provide a level of analysis and hopefully deep insights into the performance of risk management. Clearly, it will need architecture to set up. Once it is in place, it could provide us with specific information about the risks that our organisation faces today, in the coming 3-6 months, and how they are currently being managed.

Hopefully when combined with powerful computing that is coming forth, these assistants will be able to handle vast volumes of data and present insights and answers from them. This could lead to faster surfacing of new risks and potential (and actual) issues that need addressing.

It could also provide us with analysis of past solutions to similar problems and let us know which ones were effective. For example,they could provide insights into “what performance risks today are showing signs of issues” and we could follow up by asking it “what is the recommended solution and why”. Our voice-activated digital assistant could perform a quick analysis of a broad data set to provide insights that would be broader than a traditional management team, because as humans there will always be limits to how much data we can digest – and of course we have many, many biases that can prevent us from taking the best course of action.

One thing we need to take into account in the design of such digital assistants is to not build our own biases into their data analysis.

When may such digital assistants become the norm?That’s the $64,000 question…!

A discussion about Culture with EA and the RMIA

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 30 May 2018 10:50:21 GMT

The RMIA's CEO, Scott Ryrie, speaks about the importance of culture

It was a pleasure to host an event for the Engineers Australia Risk Engineering Society on 30th May in Sydney, in which Scott Ryrie, CEO of the Risk Management Institute of Australasia (the RMIA) held an engaging Q&A discussion about culture - its importance to the Risk profession and how we can play our part in fostering strong cultures that take and manage risk well.

Speaking at the StrategicRISK Singapore forum, May 18

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 10 May 2018 04:16:09 GMT

A forum of circa 250 Risk professionals discusses risk management

It was a pleasure to be one of the Speakers at the StrategicRISK forum in Singapore on 8th May 2018, which was an event attended by approximately 250 Risk practitioners and which covered many different aspects of risk management.

My topic focused on "the worth of modern Risk standards", and whether they are keeping pace with the needs of modern organisations, in the private and public sectors, large and small. In my view, you take from standards what you are willing to understand and appreciate from them. Whilst we have two overarching international Risk standards in ISO 31000:2018 and COSO ERM 2017 which serve as general guidelines, there are many other associated standards for different disciplines and industries, and regions/countries.

It was interesting to see feedback from the audience, using an online polling system, about the number of people who are considering updating their organisation's Risk Framework, and the views about whether the ISO 31000:2018 and COSO ERM 2017 standards would help them.

If you would like more information about my views on the international Risk standards and how best to use and leverage them, please contact me.

Infrastructure projects and risk management

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 17 Apr 2018 02:11:04 GMT

Infrastructure projects are highly relevant to me, in my line of work and for what they represent.

Our focus on understanding, taking and managing risk on challenging Infrastructure projects, with the large amounts of uncertainty that inevitably comes with them, has led to some fantastic achievements around the world. Whilst there are certainly examples of projects that have not gone to plan, there are also some terrific examples of projects that have achieved their objectives. I have recently written an article outlining some considerations to effectively using risk management on infrastructure projects – by stitching the core elements of good risk management into their initiation, design, planning, delivery and operation. I hope you find it of interest.

Do you use bowties?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 21 Mar 2018 01:03:28 GMT

Bowties - a tried and trusted technique to help us manage risk

Image credit: Satarla

Is the bowtie analysis technique part of your toolkit? If not, it should be.

The history of the bowtie goes back a few decades. It was used by ICI in the 1970s, and used by Royal Dutch/Shell Petroleum in the 1990s to analyse the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster (where a North Sea offshore oil rig exploded leading to 167 fatalities). Although popularised as a “Health & Safety risk analysis technique”, it is useful for any risk.

A bowtie analysis visually demonstrates how well-defended an organisation is, by showing what controls are in place, and asks how effective they are.

A good bowtie analysis can demonstrate to stakeholders (the supply chain, the public, regulators etc.) that risks are recognised, understood and are being managed with controls and a control environment in place, both from a preventive point of view and to prepare for the risk occurring .

The bowtie may be thought of as a combined application of a high-level fault tree to look at causes, and a high-level event true to look at consequences. It provides a visual representation of causes (threats) of an event, likely outcomes (consequences) and measures to have in place to prevent the event from occurring, to mitigate its impacts if it occurs, and to control it.

For a nice summary of the bowtie, click here . For a brief YouTube video explanation (from the team at Satarla), click here .

For more information about the bowtie technique, please contact me.

A successful IRM Infrastructure Risk SiG in London!

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 09:31:24 GMT

A knowledge-sharing event that I co-facilitated in The Shard

It was a pleasure to co-facilitate an Institute of Risk Management (IRM) Infrastructure Risk SiG on Tuesday, 20th February in the iconic building, The Shard, in London.
We discussed many elements of infrastructure risk, in an interactive two and a half hour session.
We agreed on a number of key outcomes to continue working on as a group.
It is a pleasure to continue to be involved in a number of activities for the UK-based IRM.

Is there such a thing as a “safety risk”?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 11:53:57 GMT

Food for thought from Rod Farrar (Principal Consultant, Paladin Risk)

Is there such a thing as a “safety risk”? Rod Farrar, Principal Consultant at Paladin Risk , discusses in a blog post on his website how “a risk is a risk”, and that it will often have multiple impacts. If there is a safety impact, it may be the most important one, of course: safety is a critical factor in many industries. Managing safety is good business, and many risks have safety implications that need to be understood and managed.

Here's my viewpoint:

I am an adherent to thinking about risk in an integrated and holistic way.

Also, we should remember that many techniques to manage safety have contributed to broader risk practices and techniques that can be, and are, applied to all sorts of situations – such as the Bow Tie Analysis, Scenario Analysis and good practices in industrial Operational Risk Management.

There is clearly a lot of synergy in how we can manage risks with safety impacts and how we manage risks that do not have safety impacts.

NASA's ethos on Safety and Risk Management

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 11:48:15 GMT

NASA’s Office of Safety & Mission Assurance (OSMA) defines their approach to safety.

The NASA OSMA outlines how much safety is inbuilt into NASA’s DNA.

The exploration of space is by its very nature a high-risk endeavour. I have had the privilege to visit NASA's Johnson Space Center twice over the past few years, and I have seen some amazing examples of the focus and culture of safety, and good risk-informed decision-making, embedded into everything that NASA does.

Safety Culture’s mission at NASA is to create an environment where everyone works safely, feels comfortable communicating safety issues, learns from mistakes and successes, feels confident balancing challenges and risks while keeping safety in the forefront, and trusts that safety is a priority.

David Loyd , part of NASA’s Safety & Test Operations team, based at the Johnson Space Center, summed up his views on NASA's approach to safety in this way in a chat with me recently:

"It has been an honor to work with the NASA Safety Culture Working Group on such a substantive long-term initiative. As a career safety professional, what the safety culture model offers is methodology for improving safety performance no matter how mature your safety program is. We are able to measure maturity, shape leadership and employee behavior, and convey a vision for safety at a very practical level that fits virtually an organizational venture."

What can we learn from hospital emergency departments about managing a business crisis?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 09:57:39 GMT

Hospital Emergency departments and business Crisis Management Teams (CMTs) may not, at first glance, have much in common. Hospital Emergency departments deal with emergency situations and life-threatening events every day. They are constantly having to deal with critical situations, having to adapt to ever-changing conditions and events on many fronts and to re-prioritise their actions. They face critical challenges every day, all the while having to act under pressure. They provide a fantastic service to the community that they serve.

Unlike the teams of people who work in hospital emergency departments, Business Crisis Management Teams (CMTs) hopefully do not need to come together very often to manage a crisis event. Although these CMTs may come together less often than hospital emergency department teams, they need to make sure they practice their skills for managing a crisis so that, when they need to form a CMT to manage a crisis, they do so quickly, with the structure they need quickly put in place to manage what will be a fast-changing situation, having to synthesise and act upon lots of information, some of it factual and some of it “noise”. Just as hospital emergency department teams do, they need to make quick decisions in a stressful environment, whilst considering the impacts these decisions will have. Just like a hospital emergency department, the business CMT needs strength in depth, with back-up people on call for occasions when the principal designated CMT members are not available.

So, whilst business CMTs are not the same as hospital emergency departments, there are some lessons that can be learned from them.

I have published some further thoughts on key elements to managing a crisis in a paper that is available in the Articles & Papers section of my website.

Is your organisation a High Reliability Organisation?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 04:21:45 GMT

A High Reliability Organisation (HRO) is well-positioned to manage a crisis event

The characteristics of a High Reliability Organisation (HRO) apply to all types of industries. An HRO is able to manage a crisis event effectively because it has the following traits:

a. There is a focus on highly trained people and reward systems that reflect their abilities, and people are trained in how to deal with a high-stress crisis environment;

b. There are frequent process audits and continuous improvement efforts (on controls, processes, technology solutions, etc.) occur as “business as usual”;

c. There is a widely distributed sense of responsibility and accountability for reliability, for thinking through risks and possible failures, and for ensuring there is the right level of redundancy (with appropriate controls) in place;

d. There is an ethos of checks and counter checks as a precaution against potential mistakes is part of the organisational culture;

e. When a crisis situation occurs, people come together quickly and in a concerted manner to manage the situation; they have been trained to deal with such situations and on how to act under intense pressure.

This paper by Noetic may be of interest for further reading about HROs.

Quantitative Risk Analysis for projects

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 23:34:33 GMT

I am often asked about Quantitative Risk Analysis and its value for projects - for commercials (the money side of things), schedule (to review time commitments) and also other elements such as safety analysis. Some people see value in this Risk technique, some people don't.

In my view, Quantitative Risk Analysis (or QRA, as it is often abbreviated to) can be a valuable part of managing project risk - as long as some key elements are in place:
1. The team needs to have an open, challenging culture
2. People need to see QRA as one of many lenses through which to understand and address risk and uncertainty - it cannot predict the future for you, what it can do is provide you with a statistical review
3. The team needs time to work through some details, to provide meaningful data, with assumptions, to run a good QRA

QRA reviews differ, depending on what precisely you are looking to achieve.
Here are some points that I have found useful in conducting a QRA based on building up a model of possible cost / schedule outcomes (this is an overview - specifics can differ depending on the situation / requirement):
1. Get the right people in a room to talk through the key risks, and the "ranges of outcomes" (often called best / likely / worst) that you agree for these key risks (be they commercial outcomes or time / schedule outcomes)
2. Ask people about the level of confidence they have towards their "ranges of outcomes"
3. Build up a model based on what you have listened to and asked about
4. Run an analysis and present findings to the team
5. Look at the overall outputs and the most sensitive data sets; think through alternative scenarios and whether, if you change something in your model, it would bring worthwhile benefits
6. Agree changes to the model and run the QRA again to review the effect of your alterations
7. Determine actions and a way forward
8. Monitor the success of your actions, track benefits, and change direction if and when you have to

As a different example, QRA in the petrochemical industry for safety can take a different form. Such a QRA may be required as part of a Safety Case. A QRA in this context analyses the impacts (or consequences) and likelihoods of a range of possible material events. The analysis is based on modelling e.g. looking at the blast overpressure and heat flux impact of the material unwanted event (MUE) on people and structures, and quantify likelihood using equipment and system failure rate data. Deliverables from this type of QRA may include a risk contour map, showing for example the level of fatality risk on a plan of the facility and surrounding areas. This can help with demonstrating compliance of a facility within tolerable risk guidelines.

Don't carry out a QRA exercise just because your client says you have to, or because it is a "tick in the box" exercise as part of preparing a project bid - there's no point doing it just so you can provide a client or your management with a report, if you don't act upon anything afterwards.

I use some particular tools for conducting QRA - Palisade's @RISK tool for number-based QRA and Barbecana's Full Monte tool specifically for schedule QRA - which work well. They are flexible tools that can be easily used during team reviews and subsequent in-depth analysis.

I have more detailed papers and slide decks about certain aspects of QRA. Contact me on LinkedIn or by email if you would like more information.

Winning with projects - a piece by Hans Laessoe

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 23:03:12 GMT

An article by Hans Laessoe (Principal Consultant, AKTUS)

I am delighted to include a "guest article" on project risk management by Hans Laessoe, Principal Consultant at AKTUS, based in Denmark.
Hans was a former Senior Director of Risk at the LEGO Group.

Click here to access the article. Hans writes about his experience and key points to managing risk successfully on projects. I am sure that you will find it to be a good read!

The AKTUS name is a merger of the Danish words “aktiv usikkerhed”, i.e. active uncertainty”. The company is based on the philosophy is that uncertainties are a fact of life, and one may as well learn to manage these actively and thereby create manoeuvrability as a real competitive advantage.

Keeping Score - a piece by Mike Lutomski

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 22:53:59 GMT

By Mike Lutomski - formerly of NASA (former Risk Manager for the International Space Station)

When I mention “keeping score” I’m not talking about a sporting event you may be betting on, nor am I talking about the last time your spouse took the dog for a walk or folded the laundry. I’m talking about risk management. A lot of people get hung up on scoring a qualitative risk, or where you rank risks from top to bottom. Truthfully, “hung up” is probably an understatement if you’re in a large organization with an active risk process. People will get obsessed and over-focus on the likelihood and consequence score of a particular risk.

Scoring and ranking risks is important, after all it’s a decision support tool, or a management tool where it should help inform important decisions on where to spend resources and focus attention, but these steps of analyzing risks is certainly not the point of risk management.

Risk management is an important communication system where you are trying to gain attention to a potential issue. Trying to get more resources and/or communicate this potential future problem with management and your peers.

Say you use a 5x5 risk matrix, where the vertical axis is likelihood, and the horizontal axis is consequence; it’s not important is your risk is a 3x4 or a 4x3 or even a 5x5. If you’ve entered into the risk register, and have the opportunity to present it to management in a coherent manner, you’ve won. You’ve communicated this potential issue, discussed ways to mitigate it, discussed the resources required including the time and money that it will take to avoid this risk from being realized. It’s not important if some risk management guru or even your peers agree with the “score” of the risk, it’s only important if you’ve gotten attention on the risk!

Aus-UK Knowledge Sharing Infrastructure meeting

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 11:23:20 GMT

Engineers Australia and the IRM Infrastructure SiG facilitated KM web meeting

On Monday, 13th November 2017, I was delighted to facilitate a knowledge sharing web meeting event between Engineers Australia and the UK Institute of Risk Management (IRM) Infrastructure Group (SiG). Over 100 people patched into the event, from around Australia and the UK, and a group of people in Sydney, in the Engineers Australia facility.
We covered the extent of infrastructure work across Asia-Pacific and the UK, and then focused on some specific risk management practices and project profiles.
We are looking forward to holding more of these types of events in future!
Please contact me if you would like to obtain more information about this event.

Counterfactual Risk Analysis - look back to think ahead

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 06:00:04 GMT

What if the wind had blown radioactive contamination onshore when the Fukushima nuclear plant was struck by a tsunami in 2011? What if West Africa had been embroiled in civil war during 2014’s Ebola crisis?

Major global events like these could have had even more serious impacts if things had happened just a bit differently.

The same is true of other risks that turn into events, be they on a global scale or smaller.

Lloyd’s, together with modelling company RMS, have published a new report – entitled Counterfactual Disaster Risk Analysis: Reimagining History - setting out how a type of lateral thinking, called counterfactual thinking, can be applied to look at risk. Whilst the report focuses on insurance, it is equally valid for all of us who manage risk.

The report discusses how counterfactual risk analysis – considering how historical near misses might have become major disasters or crises – can be carried out. It is a starting point for future research into counterfactual events and their characteristics.

I spoke to one of the authors, Gordon Woo, recently. Gordon described to me how this thinking can be a useful "lens" for people to apply, to learn from the past when looking forwards at how to manage risk. Using counterfactual risk analysis we can view risks in a holistic manner, to better understand the range of impacts to achieving objectives and targets that we set ourselves, and to decide what kind of actions we should best undertake to work towards these objectives. This approach applies equally to business managers and people in government and non-governmental organisations; it is not just for Risk and Insurance practitioners. There is synergy with the concepts of a High Reliability Organisation (an HRO) in the approach that is put forward. Using a counterfactual risk analysis “lens” can help you to assess the likelihood and extent of all reasonable potential consequences in a disciplined and systematic fashion. It can be used to review the risks you face, from your strategy formulation to detailed operational management. Done well, it can help inform the robustness of the plans that are being agreed.

This is a very interesting piece of work, which I encourage people to read and think about.

Managing risk in the digital age

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 03:01:44 GMT

I have written articles recently about how the management of risk is changing as we digitise our world. For an example, click here .
The digital age is well and truly upon us. It pervades business and our personal lives, and provides us with many benefits. It also presents us with risks. Risk management remains a qualitative management practice in many industries, supported to varying degrees by quantitative analysis. Generally, the more strategic the risk, the more management decision-making tends towards being qualitative, using techniques such as scenario planning and good business acumen. This is set to change. The need to qualitatively review risk will remain, but what we now see is a ‘tipping point’ at which the digitisation of business presents an opportunity to combine qualitative reviews with a data-driven approach to managing risk. Those who are pursuing this path are already seeing tangible benefits.

The Three Lines of Defence model

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 02:58:51 GMT

Talk to people who work in Risk and Audit about The Three Lines of Defence, and you will receive a range of opinions about it. Some say it works and it is a great model to pursue, others don't think it adds value.
I think that The Three Lines of Defence offers a good, practical approach to ensuring that risk and assurance is carried out properly. It is a model, and it can be interpreted in different ways. When it is applied well, with true understanding and behaviours across operations, functions and Internal Audit, it can be a sound approach to have in place.

What does achieving insights really mean?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 02:55:51 GMT

I am a big fan of the work of Gary Klein. Gary is a cognitive psychologist, formerly with MIT. Gary talks a lot about how insights can be gained in his work.
In one of his books, titled Seeing What Others Don't, Gary talks about five ways in which we gain insight into something: contradictions, connections, curiosity, coincidences and creative desperation.
Full details about these factors are available in the book. The main point for me is that we need to have the right mindset and attitude to want to see insights, and to think through possible uncertainty, in order to see insights into the risks we face. If we do not have the right mindset and attitude, we simply won't see things and form valuable insights out of them.

Risk Reporting - does it add value?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 07:40:20 GMT

I am firmly of the belief that risk reporting must look forward as well as reviewing what has happened. Forward-looking reporting needs to provide insights, connecting things together to help to stimulate good discussions in appropriate reviews. I will write more about this in due course.

Is Risk Management in need of a refresh?

florian.glinserer@worldhost.group — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:02:20 GMT

Risk Management means different things to different people. A fundamental premise of managing risk is that it must be integrated into how organisations (be they businesses, governments or NGOs) operate. It can't be standalone, nor can it be the activity of a few people who gather together reports about risks on an occasional basis.
In future Blog posts I will write more about how I see the future of risk management shaping up. I look forward to hearing what people think.