IN THIS SECTION:

There are risks and costs to a programme of action but they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

John. F. Kennedy

Mentoring & training

In Risk Solutions we are committed to developing and sharing good practice in the field of risk management. We provide this by working in partnership with our client’s teams, teaching them ‘on the job’ how we approach risk management to ensure it adds value to the organisation and doesn’t become an end in itself.

Mentoring
We also provide ‘mentoring’ to senior management as they are faced with the problem of actually applying risk management principles in their day-to-day decision making. This could be on the basis of one of our senior Consultants or Directors being available to talk over problems as and when required, or it could be in the form of regular ‘clinics’ with key members of the client organisation.

Training Courses
Where organisations are rolling out a new approach to risk management, we offer tailored courses – often based on three modules:

Risk identification. This introduces the concept of hazards and risks in different fields (e.g. strategic, safety, environmental, operational) and how a variety of techniques should be used, ranging from checklists to mind maps and reverse brainstorming, to identify risks. The module also explains how to create and use risk matrices to allow different types of risk to be compared, define the organisation’s ‘risk appetite’ and prioritise the risks.
Risk assessment. This builds on the previous module by explaining the difference between frequency and probability, different types of probabilistic distributions and how to value different outcomes in a common ‘currency’. A number of risk modelling techniques are introduced including Fault and Event Trees, simple spreadsheet models and Monte Carlo Simulations.
Risk decision-making. The final module looks at legal and ethical considerations, such as the concepts of ‘As Low As Reasonably Practicable’ and the ‘Tolerability of Risk’. It then explains the role of quantified risk assessment alongside industry standards and good practice, and problems associated with trading off risks from one group to another. The module concludes by exploring ‘societal concern’ and its implications for decision making.

All of the course modules use examples from the audience’s world to demonstrate the principles and encourage debate.

EXAMPLE CASE STUDIES: