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Results of our Poll on Cyber Warfare and Risk Based Decision Making Procedures.

We promised to publish the results of our Poll on Cyber Warfare and Risk Based Decision Making Procedures.  So here they are, for your information. Results of our Poll on Cyber Warfare and Risk Based Decision Making Procedures. Please note, all percentages are approximate, rounded up to the nearest 5%. 60% of the respondents use a well defined risk glossary. However, only 25% use well-defined risk assessment procedures and 40% expresses probabilities in non numeric ways (qualitative, indexes etc.). Almost…

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Black Swan Mania Part3

In Part 2  we examined social unrest and terrorism, of which we found only one each in the original list . We demonstrated that none of those two cases was actually a Black Swan, because they simply did not fit the definition! Now, in the same list, we see a total of 5 Economic/financial alleged Black Swans, and we are going to use the same approach of Part 2 to see if at least these comply with the definition of Black…

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Black Swan Mania Part2

From the Black Swan list we can count 1 Political/social Black Swan (Unrest in the Middle East). Now if we look at the last 200 years of Human history we can easily count at least 16 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions) political/social major large scale events. Even without considering two World Wars, but only “a few additional wars since then“, we get, for the sake of simplicity, to a total of around 20. So, now, the question is: how can anyone try to argue that something…

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Black Swan Mania: Using Buzzwords Can Be a Dangerous Habit

Black Swan has been a viral epidemic culminating with the economic recession. We are referring to the use of the term “Black Swan”. Indeed Black Swan Mania: Using Buzzwords Can Be a Dangerous Habit. Black Swan Mania: Using Buzzwords Can Be a Dangerous Habit Of course we are not talking about the Tchaikovsky ballet, or the recent related movie. In fact we are referring to the Black Swan Theory which refers “to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and…

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Our clients beat the trends. We are proud to contribute to their leadership.

Our clients beat the trends. We are proud to contribute to their leadership. This blogpost discusses this issue. The trigger lied in reading a Deloitte’s report. As a matter of fact, we read with a lot of interest Deloitte’s report entitled: Tracking the trends 2011, The top 10 issues mining companies will face in the coming year. The issues We summarize below the issues highlighted in Deloitte’s report: 1 Financing 2 Volatility 3 Stakeholders engagement 4 Taxes, regulations and governments…

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ALE, FMEA, FMECA, qualitative methods: is it really what we need!?

ALE, FMEA, FMECA, qualitative methods: is it really what we need!? discusses the evaluation of systems’ failure. An array of methodologies exist. Among these the are Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and the Failure Mode and Effects Criticality Analysis (FMECA). Many Risk Assessment use Annual Loss Expected (ALE) as a metric for impact or consequences. Impact analysis of every potential defect on functionality The essence of FMEA/FMECA is the impact analysis of every potential defect on functionality of the…

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Why Legal Negligence Test is not a Critical Test for an Operation?

Why Legal Negligence Test is not a Critical Test for an Operation ? Isn’t that an interesting question to discuss? Many recognize that, in its simplest form, Risk= (probability of a hazard occurring) x (Cost of consequences of the hazard hitting) The definition is available in Hiromitsu Kumamoto and Ernest J. Henley, Probabilistic Risk Assessment and Management for Engineers and Scientists, 2nd edition (New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 1996), p. 2.). Therefore a company-wide risk can…

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In Riskope’s (www.riskope.com ) day to day review jobs we notice a number of pitfalls in Risk (Management) approaches:

In Riskope’s day to day review jobs we notice a number of Pitfalls in Risk (Management) approaches. For example: Deficiencies and sometimes, to a lesser extent, excess in defining scenarios included in the analysis. The apparently “desperate need to use precise numbers” when dealing to quantitative analyses. That plays in favor of excessively fuzzy and confusing qualitative or indexed approaches. Users use them  with the excuse that anyways “numbers will be wrong”. The irresistible need to delve into exceedingly complex…

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