The newest infographic from Riskographics provides a visual guide for “knowing your risks”.  Leveraging the AS/NZS ISO 31000:2009 Risk Management – Principles and Guidelines, this infographic provides a more effective way of communicating the risk management process.  The document itself contains 9,584 words where as this infographic is all about the pictures.

One of the first things you need to do when assessing your business, is perform some form of analysis.  The PEST Wheel provides a fantastic way of visualising your businesses external environment.  This is our view of the current broad environment for all industries utilising the framework from http://beckmann-bio.com/graphics/pest_analysis.png.

Later on in the framework organisations needs to better understand their risks.  In order to do this we recommend utilising two frameworks, Who/What/When/How/Why and the 5-Whys.  For more information on 5-Whys visit http://bulbburner.com/2010/05/5-whys-and-the-pitfalls/.

In risk management terms the 5-Whys is extremely beneficial in getting to the key reason the risk is a risk.  Many times people will either state, “That is not a risk to us” or “The biggest risk for us is x”.  These statements are opinions and a good Risk Manager moves beyond opinion and gets to root causes and understanding.  Hence, continually asking “why”, ie. Why is that a risk?, will help you really get to the root cause of the risk itself.

Supporting this with documenting the Who, What, When, How and Why, will provide you with in depth data on the risk itself.

From a risk perspective:

• Who – Who owns the risk you have identified in the process/business?
• What – What impact would this risk have on the process/business if it eventuated?
• When – When can this risk occur in the process/business?
• How – How would this risk eventuate?  What events could cause it to occur?
• Why - Why would this be a risk to the process/business?

Utilising this type of methodology provides the Risk Manager with a structured approach to understand the risks in the process and the business.

We believe this newest infographic will make it easier to communicate to management on the risk framework.

Please feel free to use this in your activities and we would appreciate any feedback on what you would like added to the graphic.