[SystemSafety] Approaching Cape Town

[Les Chambers]

Peter
Off topic? Are you sure?

The sailing community formed the backdrop for the paper I delivered at the
Safety Critical Systems Club conference in Bristol, 2015. The topic was risk
tolerance. My sense was that it was well received. There is therefore a high
probability that at least 200 functional safety professionals disagree with
you.
The thrust of the paper was that risk tolerance varies by community of
interest. It is particularly high in communities such as bluewater sailing
and aircraft carrier operations. Risk tolerance is a key determinant of the
classical ALARP. Factors that determine and justify risk tolerance are
therefore worthy of study. Projecting these concepts onto our everyday
experience we see entrepreneurs with risk tolerances approaching that of the
bluewater sailor. The difference is that they are risking our lives not
theirs. Hence my cautionary note in a previous post that we should think
this through before climbing into one of their driverless cars. With Lisa
Blair we have an opportunity to study it in real time as a major safety
incident unfolds. For this reason I would hope that every nose on this list
is glued to Lisa's blog.
Remember the risk management process?
Phase 1: We assess risk, phase 2: we erect barriers to prevent risk
transforming into incidents, Phase 3: should incidents occur we make plans
to reduce the severity of the outcome, Phase 4: when incidents do occur we
carry out our plans.
In 40 years of advocacy for spending money on safety I have found stories
such as this valuable in convincing those who allocate capital to loosen
their purse strings. I've also found that people at the coalface who operate
critical systems prefer to be instructed through stories. They detest and
despise equations Peter. 

Lisa Blair is currently in risk management phase 4. A Facebook video you can
access through her blog indicates she's got everything under control, gently
motoring north to Cape Town in what looks like calm seas. I encourage
everyone to stay tuned.

Cheers
Les

-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Peter Bernard Ladkin
Sent: Wednesday, April 5, 2017 11:49 AM
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Approaching Cape Town

Les,

On 2017-04-05 01:38 , Les Chambers wrote:
> An update on Lisa Blair.
> .....
> Lisa's blog has stopped. I guess she's fully occupied at the moment. There
will be more news though.
> Stay tuned.

While this is an important and interesting general story, it is manifestly
off topic. So, please, let's drop it.

PBL

Prof. i.R. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany MoreInCommon Je suis
Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de