The risk register has thirty entries. Two of them can end the business.

Most risk registers rank threats by how likely they are. That is the wrong axis when one entry is survivable and another is not.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for The risk register has thirty entries. Two of them can end the business.

A risk register that has been maintained for a few years tends to look reassuring. Thirty or forty entries, each with an owner, a likelihood score, an impact score, a product of the two, and a colour. The document is evidence of diligence. It is also, in most cases, evidence that nobody has separated the risks that cost money from the risks that end the company. The problem is arithmetic. Multiplying likelihood by impact produces a single number, and a single number implies that risks are commensurable: that a 30%…

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