Incidents & Near Misses
One good place is to look at (and learn from) the things that have happened in the past. Smart organisations look to not only learn from things that have happened to them, but also things that have happened to other organisations. Remember, just because an incident has happened doesn’t mean there is no longer a risk – if the same thing can re-occur then it should be captured as both a risk and an incident. It is good practice to capture your incidents and learn from them.
Pros
- Enables learning from past mistakes and information the organisation has accumulated over time
- (May) provide positive feedback that controls are working (if we have no more incidents)
- Creates a linkage between risks and ‘real world’ activities that people can relate to.
Cons
- Only gives a view of what has happened not what might happen (if other tools are not applied)
- Requires good data management throughout the company and recording of useful information
- The company has to have the right culture otherwise events (and real root causes) may get hidden
- Requires time to be spent investigating incidents
- (May) require time to elapse before an incident occurs