Thomas M. Bragg on Business Risk Management

It’s been difficult to come up with topics this week.  The situation in Haiti seems to consume the majority of my thoughts when I’m outside the office. Make a difference. Please donate cash to the relief agency of your choice.

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I thought I’d take a look at my Google Analytics page and see what people are searching for when they find my website. There is a definite trend. Many of the searches involve the word “example” or are geared toward identifying potential risks for businesses. Let’s talk about that… Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last couple of months, I’ve walked through the process for small business risk management with you. I thought it would be a good idea to capture all of the “how to” posts in one place.

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Take a look at the compilation. My hope is that after reading all the posts below you have a general understanding of how to manage risks and opportunities for your small business. More importantly, I hope you see the benefit of incorporating formalized risk management into your daily business life.

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Let’s take a step back for a minute. Step one of the risk management process is “Identify your risks”. Three little words so it must be pretty easy, right? Not really.

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A risk management plan is only as good as the risks you identify. They need to be specific. They need to be the ‘root risks’ or the root causes of those potential hazards (or opportunities, remember) facing your business. As you start drilling down into all of your assumptions you’ll find that it is hard to get deep enough. It’s hard to go far enough down into the details without getting derailed on meaningless tangents.

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To help out the process, I’ve developed a technique I call the “5 Coulds”. I can’t claim this technique as original work. It’s based on a root cause analysis technique called the “5 Whys” that is used in process improvement and the Toyota Production System. Read the rest of this entry »