Cognitive biases apply to tailings discussions more than one could think. Indeed, cognitive biases can cloud debates and oftentimes lead to worrisome “alternative facts” bordering with fake news. Cognitive biases are likely hidden in glossy documents, websites, seemingly authoritative statistical approaches which are then oftentimes referenced by inattentive readers. The final effect is of course to perpetrate the cognitive drifts. Original authors foster the noble cause of reducing the risks posed by the hazardous structures used to contain tailings, i.e.…
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It is very saddening to report about the Highway Bridge Catastrophic Failure in Genoa, Italy just one week after the horrific accident in Bologna. The bridge, build in 1967 was a stayed pre-stressed reinforced concrete structure. Its futuristic design and lines drew comments from inception. This time again we will not enter in any legal/political debate, but look at the tragedy with our risk management eyes. We have decided to start the discussion using a few cognitive biases and misconceptions that…
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Opportunity, experience, learning from mistakes and regrets come up in many conversations. Examples generally start with a IF: I had known what I know now. It would be possible to start over again. A second chance would be possible. It seems like we really firmly believe we can learn from prior mistakes. We can absorb lesson learned and profit from them. However, there is abundant evidence that is not the case. We tend to repeat patterns, even if we know they…
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Project risks budget exceedance used as a rejecting argument by activists popped on our radar-screen a few days ago. Indeed we recently read an article stating that Environmentalists want the Ontario government (Canada) to abandon plans for a $13-billion refurbishment of four nuclear reactors at the Darlington generating station. We could not help but to remember a post we wrote about mega projects and the numerous cognitive biases that flaw our human reasoning. Indeed poorly made risk assessments, foster internal and…
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Strategic, Tactical & Operational planning While the world was feeling the aftershocks of the Great Recession, we wrote about 16 common Human traits when dealing with hazards and risks. Some of those 16 traits lead individuals and often their organizations to assume stances called Ostrich, Denial or Prayer, resulting in flawed Strategic, Tactical & Operational planning options and occasionally exposing them (and their neighbors, their environment, society at large) to significant hazards which could generate large unintended consequences, i.e. large risks leading to…
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Cognitive biases, oversimplified assessments, vanishing flights and real life lessons It was a late afternoon in Tokyo, back in the year 2000. I was giving a presentation to a small group of executives from an Japanese airline. 9/11, Air France 447 and Malaysian Airline MH370 had not occurred yet. The subject, I am sure you’d guessed right, was risk management. I was talking about probabilities of events and long chains of small deviations that can lead to accidents. All of a…
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Close Calls and Human Biases, Near misses receive different interpretations in different countries, cultural backgrounds. Some societies consider them glorified achievements of intuitive semi-gods. In others they are just plain indicators of near failure. When near misses become repetitive, it can be assumed they are the result of a systemic flaw. Systemic flaws only require a small “twist of fate” to turn into an accident, possibly a disaster. In an industrial operation we know of, people became accustomed to a…
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Our judgements are clouded by prejudices and misconceptions. Indeed, we humans often assess the probability of an event by asking ourselves if there are “cognitively available” examples. Those are readily available through memory as Kahneman (Nobel Prize in Economics) and Tversky demonstrated in a series of papers published between 1971 and 1984. Among those papers the most popular is likely the one entitled “Prospect Theory”,1979 quoted at page 212 in our book. Availability heuristic The phenomenon highlighted by Kahneman and…
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