You can’t cover everything, trying will only prove it and set you up for litigation

Many times trade associations are encouraging you to write massive risk management plans. “Experts” are out there offering their services in doing so. You start this process and either get bogged down or finish a plan where you believe you have it covered. But you don’t. You can’t discover every way that people can get hurt on or at your program.

David Apgar is an author and researcher who talks about the risks of absolute risks. In his book Relevance: Hitting Your Goals by Knowing What Matters Dr. Apgar stated “No amount of brainstorming or help from an experienced consultant will unearth a complete set of risks facing a [business].”

David Apgar is the author of “Risk Intelligence: Learning to Manage What We Don’t Know” (Harvard Business Press 2006) and “Relevance: Hitting Your Goals by Knowing What Matters” (Jossey-Bass, 2008).

If you want to prove this to yourself, start with an easy example. Write down all of the things that can happen to you while sitting at your computer reading this article. How long is that list? Did you include any of the following:

Eye Strain,

Electrocution

Your chair breaking,

Carpal Tunnel

Paper cut

Allergic reaction to the fumes from the computer

Have we scratched the surface? What else did you come up with that I did not? Will any of these issues change if you add weather to the equation? Will the chances increase, will the risk increase, will the severity increase, and will your response change?

Now take this list and start adding to if for outdoors, add speed to the equation, weather, and poor judgment. Your risk management plan will have a new name, Encyclopedia and will match the encyclopedia in size.

Once you have your plan written, you must keep it up to date. Will your risk management plan need to change based on the experience of your staff or the training they have received? What if you change the location of part of the program? Any change in the law may affect how the plan is written.

Eventually you will have a staff equal to that of the encyclopedia to maintain and update the risk management plan.

The solution is twofold to develop a framework for dealing with problems

    Develop program for dealing with all issues

    Train your employees to deal with everything

    Hire people able to deal with the issues.

The Federal Land Management Agencies and Emergency response programs have figured this out and dealt with it. They developed the Incident Command System. Instead of detailing exactly what to do when something happens, the developed a program that details how to deal, no matter what the program.

You can take the first class in the Incident Command System online in a few minutes (most federal agencies offer the course on line) and learn how the system works. Once you learn that you can develop your risk management plan like the ICS system. A plan that works not matter what happens.

In the mean time, let me know how that encyclopedia is coming.