Managing and mitigating risk
As an outdoor professional safety is my number one priority. Managing risk is my bread and butter, however sometimes situations arise when your skills need to be tested. As a wilderness river guide I have seen many canoes attached to rocks, this has given me the opportunity to practice and hone my rope work skills, as well as managing a group of people in a rescue situation. More importantly It has given me a keen eye to position myself where I need to be in case I need to preform a rescue.
Assessing and managing risk is key in the Outdoor Industry, considering risk is constantly around us. As a professional guide and outdoor enthusiast I mitigate risk everyday. I only allowing a certain amount of acceptable risk through, in order to challenge my students and clients. As an experienced multi-day canoeist, kayaker and guide, managing risk has become my bread and butter. When scouting rapids mid way through a 30 day trip, I take into account a long checklist to see if it is too risky to run the rapid.
Assessing and managing risk is key in the Outdoor Industry, considering risk is constantly around us. As a professional guide and outdoor enthusiast I mitigate risk everyday. I only allowing a certain amount of acceptable risk through, in order to challenge my students and clients. As an experienced multi-day canoeist, kayaker and guide, managing risk has become my bread and butter. When scouting rapids mid way through a 30 day trip, I take into account a long checklist to see if it is too risky to run the rapid.
What is risk?
Risk is broken in to the equation: Hazard +Consequence=Risk.
Risk Management is adding the hazard and the consequence and 1) being ok with the outcome 2) can you safely manage a negative outcome? A positive outcome?
Risk Management is adding the hazard and the consequence and 1) being ok with the outcome 2) can you safely manage a negative outcome? A positive outcome?
Decision making
We make decisions on a daily bases. The first one everyday is whether or not to get out of bed. Some of us struggle with this, they preform a risk analysis and for them the hazard (being late for work) is low consequence and they do not mind rushing. Others are not ok with the idea of rushing in the morning. They mitigate this by getting up earlier then they need or not snoozing. We all have different levels of acceptable risk.
Heuristic traps
A heuristic is a rule made to short cut your decision making. It makes a decision for you. These are not bad things, as they short cut our decision making. but, we do need to be aware of them. Think about stop sign, it is a heuristic. It is a short cut that tells you the driver to stop and survey the intersection. The Heuristic trap not stopping at the stop sign (or not looking around). falling into that trap is getting caught be the policy, or worse getting hit by another car.
Assessing your decisions
The whitewater world is dynamic and always changing. If a decision made sense one minute, it may not the next. Like wise every situation calls for a different outlook and a different decision. Since it is so dynamic we need to be constantly alert and assessing to see if we are falling into a heuristic trap. To make this easier for us we use the acronym FACETS. FACETS comes from the avalanche world, but it is very applicable to whitewater. Remember a rapid is like a liquid avalanche.
FACETS
F: Familiarity
Example
You being familiar with something
A: Acces
Example
We drove all this way...
C: Commitment
Example
We planned to something there for we have to do it
E: Expert Halo
Example
letting someone make the decision because they are better than you. Or vise versa not listening to someone with less experiance than you.
T: Tracks
Example
Someone has been there, therefore it is fine.
S: TScarcity
Example
Once in a lifetime opportunity
Contributing factors:
The factors that lead you to fall into a heuristic trap. Some of them are:
Authority
Time
Weather
Hunger/ thirst
Equipment
Water levels
Permits
Ego
Fear
Stress
Camera
Example
You being familiar with something
A: Acces
Example
We drove all this way...
C: Commitment
Example
We planned to something there for we have to do it
E: Expert Halo
Example
letting someone make the decision because they are better than you. Or vise versa not listening to someone with less experiance than you.
T: Tracks
Example
Someone has been there, therefore it is fine.
S: TScarcity
Example
Once in a lifetime opportunity
Contributing factors:
The factors that lead you to fall into a heuristic trap. Some of them are:
Authority
Time
Weather
Hunger/ thirst
Equipment
Water levels
Permits
Ego
Fear
Stress
Camera