Risk Management

Tools for Managing Risk

By Ian Wade, Executive Director, OBI

Newcomers to instructing for Outward Bound are faced with rather large books of procedures and rules that document the experience of the past and strategies for managing risk.  In conveying this hard won experience of past practitioners, it certainly helps to have a systematic model or way of organizing the information, especially where human life is in danger.  Remarkably little has been published in this regard that apples to managing risks of adventure activities.

An early contribution was Dan Meyer's 1970's work in the USA looking at the causes of incidents.  This looks at contributing factors and underlying causes of incidents.  While this represents a useful analytical tool it is not necessarily helpful in planning and prevention.

A simple Risk Assessment and Management System was developed in New Zealand by the Mountain Safety Council and has been adapted by several Outward Bound centers as part of their staff training.  About five years ago, I worked with OB Singapore to develop a course that was initially theoretical and then practically applicable to the activities their staff was expected to manage.  The rather simple theory is presented here, but to really understand it then some experiential learning during the 5-day Risk Assessment and Management program is recommended.

Level of Risk

Depending on the goals of the program different levels of risk may be acceptable.  For example taking children on an introductory course would have a different risk tolerance than a program where instructors were being trained to manage mountain ascents in the Himalayas. 

There is always some inherent risk in any activity and one can never say the Outward Bound or any other activity in life is absolutely safe.  This chart help assess what level of risk is acceptable for given the goals of the program.

Risk Assessment Cycle

At whatever stage one starts thinking about how to do an activity there will be some Risks inherent to it.  The following diagram shows the Risk Assessment and Management System of identifying risks and deciding how to manage them so that they are consistent with the program goals. 

Assessment of Risk

To assess what might go wrong in any given activity requires some careful thought but also considerable experience of the kinds of hazards that arise in adventure activities.  Reading reports of past incidents and instructor manuals can help develop this experience.  To make this analysis of what might go wrong more systematic one can think of the three sources of risk:

Activity - the things that typically might go wrong

Participants - their unique skill and knowledge level

Environment - the weather or surface conditions, equipment etc.

Management of Risk

If the consequences of the risks identified above are unacceptable for the goals of the program then other Management of Risk strategies are devised.  This may either be to:

Reduce the risk by additional precautions

Avoid the risk entirely

Proceed because the risk seems acceptable

Summary

This Risk Assessment and Management System is remarkably simple, which makes it more likely it will be remembered by staff and used when needed.  However the complex and interactive nature of hazard that can arise require much training in being able to anticipate all the issues that might arise.  Whatever these hazards are they will fit within this simple theoretical framework.