Why is Risk Assessment often done wrong?

What does ARMS solve for you?

When I was supporting organizations in setting up and running their Safety Management System, it was easy to see that risk assessment was the biggest problem. The focus was on individual events, one at a time, and it was impossible to get the big picture. Nobody had a database or a tool, which could answer the simplest and most important question: what are your biggest risks today?!

Applying the “probability  x  severity”-formula directly on events has an in-built flaw because probability translated as “frequency” or “probability of reoccurrence” is not a feature of one single event. Besides, probability of what? And severity of what? An accident? The worst-case accident? The most probable outcome (usually nothing)? This classic approach drowns in subjectivity. You also can’t sum the risks together, so you can’t get the big picture. Overall, as the whole conceptual framework is missing, you can only be lost. This also applies to larger risk assessments, related to change, for example. These problems are well covered in the chapter 2 of the ARMS document.

And still, Safety is about Risk Management so we must be able to prioritize high risk issues. To do this, we need be able to risk assess the events that took place. We also need to be able to risk assess larger issues, e.g. common factors behind several events or the impact of planned changes in the operation. 

The ARMS methodology was developed by safety practitioners in aviation in 2007-2010. It is free and open source. It is fast becoming the reference in aviation, adopted by airlines, government agencies and alike. It works, it is simple to use, and delivers useful results!

See what people can do with ARMS! You could, for example, plot your monthly risk levels, and this is not just counting events, but looking at total accumulated risk (see chart above - bars). You could also follow the average risk per event (violet graph). Now you are measuring the right thing: risk!

ARMS is a generic method which can be applied in any domain. For example, ARMS is used in Maritime and Railway domains and it is being introduced also in health care.

The easiest way to start with ARMS is to come and follow the ARMS course. The original ARMS document can be found at: http://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/1141.pdf