Risk Type and Behavioural Bias: How Projects Fail and What to Do About It

There are two distinct approaches to risk. Firstly, the ‘objective' approach is numeric, probabilistic and focused on the risk itself; it is concerned with people in general rather than in individual terms. Secondly, the ‘subjective' approach recognizes that risk issues have personal and individual dimensions. It is argued that the progress achieved by technical advances in project management are being stalled by failure to make similar advances in addressing Human Factors. Reliance on ever-tightening controls and micro-managing workplace behavior or pursuing zero safety incidents can be counterproductive both for compliance and for the bottom line if individual risk dispositions are not part of the solution. Professional, regulatory and standards bodies increasingly emphasize employee participation and risk leadership as important for the mutual trust and respect necessary for safety objectives to be fully realized. This article reports how Risk Type is impacting these issues.