on Risk & Safety

Guest Post by John Ayers (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Reliability is designed into a product.  Poor reliability is long term, difficult and expensive to rectify because it is woven into the fabric of the product. That is why high reliability products require complete and accurate analyses, simulations, and models to be successful. High reliable components are essential as well. Single point failures are taboo but, in some cases, there is no way to avoid them.

This paper presents two examples of how to design single point failures for high reliability.

Guest Post by Peter Holtmann (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

This article is the first in our risk management series. The series will be taking a look at the risk management guidelines under the ISO 31000 Standard to help you better understand them and how they relate to your own risk management activities. In doing so we’ll be walking through the core aspects of the Standard and giving you practical guidance on how to implement it.

In this particular article, we’ll be introducing you to the ISO 31000 Standards, the guiding principles, and outlining the risk management framework.

Guest Post by Daniel Burrus (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

So long as there are products and services offered by an organization, there will be the existence of a sales force.

The basic fundamentals of selling are simple: a customer expresses a desire for something and, in turn, someone sells them a product or service to address that desire. Essentially, sales are how an organization converts a “want” into a “need.” While these fundamentals are timeless, they are rooted in a reactive process.

Guest Post by John Ayers (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Some common reasons why requirements can cause risk to a project are:

• To be determined (TBD)
• Late requirements definition
• Unclear requirement definition
• Changing requirements
• Late requirement flow down to subcontractors
• Incorrect or poorly defined interface documents

This paper explains how poorly defined requirements can impact the project.

[Read more…]

Guest Post by James Kline (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

On September 15, 2021, ASQ announced the formation of the Center for Electoral Quality and Integrity. This announcement caused a conflicted reaction.  On the one hand I liked that the Government Division, which was pushing this action, was showing some level of activity, after almost none for several years. One the other hand, I just laughed at the idea that ASQ and Government Division was going to, or even be capable of, having an impact on electoral quality or integrity. This is not a case of believing the objective is bad.

It is a case of realizing that this is not the 1990s when quality was a key priority of governments around the world. And that ASQ does not have the same level of influence it had, when in the 1990s it was instrumental in getting Education added to the Baldrige Award.

This piece discusses the white paper on Electoral Quality and Integrity which the Center seeks to implement. It also discusses the forces likely to prevent ASQ from being successful.

Guest Post by John Ayers (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

This story is an example of centering your design around a high-tech solution to a problem when a low risk proven technology would have more than sufficed.   Technical expertise egos got in the way of a practical low-cost approach resulting in unplanned schedule and cost growth.

Guest Post by Howard M. Wiener (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

I am pretty close to completing my first book – Agile Enterprise Risk Management, Risk-Based Thinking, Multi-Disciplinary Management and Digital Transformation. It is now at the publishers, awaiting finalization. I have established a site for the book and this is the home page text that describes what AERM is all about.

Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)

Teams, they are everywhere; sports teams, project teams, political parties, rock bands, military units, the list goes on.  The team isn’t just about the people in the limelight it’s also about the backroom boys and girls who provide logistical, technical, administrative, and sometime moral support to the front men and women.  Even the lone competitor or the one-man-band needs some support; everybody needs somebody sometime.