to take calculated risk. to reduce unnecessary risk. to select and manage risk exposure. to optimize risk/return. to fully understand and plan for risk.

Dear Brian

Many thanks for your elaboration. Indeed risk management is about what you have mentioned. My question is about the evolution of that field and wether if its related to Error management theory

based on your definition of error management, i would think that error management is only a subset and part of risk management

Risk Management is a vast area which deals with decision under uncertainty, being this one financial, HSE, life, hazards, etc, anything that can pose a menace to the goals of an individual or an organization. Risk can be measured by two components: the impact (gain or losses in a broad sense) and likelihood (or probability if available). Error management theory (EMT) is an extensive theory of perception and cognition biases and in fact can be considered a subset of the general risk management in the behavioral decision component.

Many thanks, as i mentioned in the brief, they are simillar in many aspects. I am looking into the rationale behind risk management and what was the framework behind that. Is it quality, knowledge or performance etc.

Moreover, if we look in depth, error management is all about what happened in the past and how it was mitigated unlike risk which offers predictably and critical analysis to the mitigation techniques

Antonio

Indeed i do agree. My point from the qhole question is that an efficient risk register follows steps/rationale of EMT. Therefore my argument is that EMT is a segment of RM. I wonder if any of these looks into cultural issues- cooccuring cultural factors/politics etc..- to be part of decision making under uncertainty ?

Hi,

Both risk management and error management are the parts of the organizational learning system. Risk management strives to accumulate the pat experience to prevent some actions (on a company), error management evaluate past ineffective actions, reveal objective and subjective causes and enriches the pool of knowledge to be used in risk analysis of further actions.

Bests,

Igor Gurkov

one can argue that error management seeks to eliminate risk, whereas this is not necessarily the purpose of risk management.

Igor: many thanks for your comment, wondering about your view as for risk management to influence project management?

Brian: indeed i do agree on that but when we look at the broader view, it feeds risk register and feeds into metigation techniques so indeed it helps in eliminating risks but i believe it offers bigger influence on the cultural transformation to become more proactive which will eventually have a positive impact on the efficiency of the risk framework.

my point is that in products you may want zero risk, but in business you do not necessarily want zero risk

what about Being "under budget" , "longer operational life" etc. positive risks? i do think RM is a rich field that can offer answers to many questions in projects pluralisim. i believe though that RM needs to add more detailed cultural factors within the field to offer more effecient strategic and operational plans

operationally, you dont want risk. strategically, you want risk. otherwise, it implies the company is dying on the long run.

so, consider strategic risk management

Dear Ghaith,

there is an interesting trade-off between risk management and project management. To much risk management results in rejecting projects with unclear (uncertain) or too risky outcomes, that leads to eliminating both large failures and large successes. Enclosed please find a case on how RM was used quite wisely.

Bests,

Igor Gurkov

I would argue that risk management is focused on managing uncertainty; whereas, error management is focused on certainty in that the errors managed are known.