THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
You can explain the risks of certain situations, but full understanding of those risks is often not achieved until they are experienced directly.
THE ANALOGY
There is a room. In the room is a rabid wombat and a baby. You are preparing someone to go in with the following guidance:
Objective: We get the baby out of there. I mean geez, there is a rabid wombat in the room with that baby. That is bad.
For purposes of this analogy, let's call our baby retriever "Gus".
Background/Risks/Considerations provided to Gus (probably via PowerPoint)
- Rabid wombats are mean
- Rabid wombats snarl and menace
- Babies are squirmy
- Do not expect the baby to significantly assist in logistics
- The wombat probably won't want the baby to leave at will indicate this to you
What happens
Gus indicates he understand the situation/risks and outlines his plan... a plan best summarized as "I move fast, ignore the wombat, grab the baby, and get out of there".
The first execution of this plan actually runs along the lines of "Gus enters the room, the wombat menaces, Gus rapidly exits"
You debrief on the first attempt.
Gus shares "That wombat looked REALLY mean and menacing. The baby gave ZERO indication he would effectively partner with me on this project. Gus does acknowledge none of this should have been a surprise to him since it had been shared in advance, but his experience has deepened his understanding of the terms "mean", "menace", and "squirmy" and their relation to the risk profile of the whole baby/wombat thing.
Armed with a true understanding of the situation, Gus returns to the room and is able to now execute the plan.
THE LESSON
Risks often sound more manageable when explained verses actually experienced. Hopefully the lessons learned via this analogy can:
- Reduce the number of times people rush to say "I understand and accept the risks"
- Prompt activity to gain actual experience in managed ways to round out the true risk understanding
- Reduce modifications to risk mitigation plans once things "go live"
