In the last post on my Risk Management Basics, I discussed some risk assessment parameters beyond the usual impact and probability. In this post, I will expand on one of those parameters: detectability.
As you might recall, detectability is "the ease with which the results of the risk occurring or being about to occur can be detected and recognized. Where the risk occurrence can be detected easily, detectability is high."
To better illustrate this concept, let's look at a "real world" situation where we used detectability to mitigate risk.
Using detectability to mitigate risk
In many countries, it's normal for people to use gas (or a gaseous mixture) for cooking. The exact composition of the mix can change from country to country, but one thing is constant: the risk of accidents related to gas leaks.
A gas leak is extremely dangerous as it can easily cause explosions or asphyxiation, and that's why people immediately switch to alert mode when they smell gas.
And that's when we get to the point of our example. Not everyone knows this, but the characteristic odour that we often refer to as the "smell of gas" is not actually that. In fact, the types of gas that are used for cooking are odourless. That very recognizable odour is actually added to cooking gas for safety reasons. In most cases, it comes from a substance called TetraHydroThiophene, or THT. It has other properties as well, such as helping to fight corrosion in gas pipelines, but its main "job" is making gas noticeable.
Cooking gas is a highly flammable, colourless and odourless substance and a gas leak, if unattended, can wipe out an entire household and maybe more, which means it would never be a suitable source of domestic energy if there wasn't a way to mitigate the risk associated with a leak.
Adding THT to cooking gas is a very elegant solution. It's relatively easy to implement, and it is a very effective mitigation strategy as almost everyone will instantly recognize the distinctive smell and realize something is not right.
One thing that's interesting to notice, based on our previous knowledge of risk management, is that, in this case, we are not doing anything to reduce the probability or the impact of a gas leak, but by drastically increasing detectability, we are mitigating the risk of an explosion.
I sometimes give lectures and quick courses on risk management and I always use this example. It's just a great way to illustrate the concept of detectability and also how sometimes we need to think outside of the box when it comes to risk management.
Final thoughts
I hope this helped to clarify what detectability means, how we can use it in our favour to mitigate risk, even when we cannot do anything about other parameters such as probability or impact but, above all, I hope this article helped consolidate the importance of proper risk management and demonstrate how broad of an area it is.
And, by the way, although I consider myself to have more knowledge of risk management than the average person, I'm not an expert on this subject. As mentioned above, risk management is a very broad subject and it takes many years of study and practice to master it but it pays to have some level of understanding, even if it's a basic one.
I'm not sure whether I'll expand more on risk management but feel free to let me know if you would like to learn about any particular aspect of this topic.