4D Analytics: Unique to Risk Insights

Risk Insights 4D Analytics™ approach has been developed to gain enough  information to make a first-pass at estimating and evaluating uncertainty, and to elicit information in a way that is comfortable for those providing the estimates e.g. not using High-Medium-Low ratings!

Explorer is revolutionary.  Explorer isn’t like other risk software.   It is the application of  uncertainty management science, advanced algorithms, powerful analytics, and scenario-based assessments.

Since Explorer makes it quick and easy to identify and structure uncertainty, it is especially useful when deciding where to focus further activity, or as a precursor to Monte Carlo simulation and deeper dive analysis.

Our Risk Interconnection Map is an unique way of presenting risk information. Compared to Probability Impact matrices which only display severity and likelihood, the interconnection map enables four dimensions to be visualized:

Risk likelihood – pessimistic and optimistic scenarios
Risk severity – worst-case and best-case
Risk interconnection – identify the connections between risks
Strength of interconnection – identify your most influential and influenced risks

 

Risks are represented by circles (nodes)

Risks are presented on the Connectivity map as circles and linked to other Risk nodes through connections. The colour of the circle matches the risk category (you can select a category from the top menu). The size of the circle is relative to other risks in the data set, and can be changed to illustrate key aspects of the assessment e.g. impact, influence rating.

Risks are represented as circles (nodes)
Risks are represented as circles (nodes)

On the ZOOM screen use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out of the map. On the ADD screen simply Drag-and-Drop to create a new Risk or to create new connections between risks.

Control Panel

Explorer Control Panel
This area is the control panel where you can customise how your data is visualised, including:
    • Show Risk Labels, Connection lines and Arrows.
    • Use ‘Gravity‘ to increase or reduce the pull between risks and so improve visibility for large maps.
  • Use the dropdown list to visualise the impact assessment of different assessment factors such as Impact value or Influence weighting.

The lines between nodes are the Connections

It is understood that in complex systems, risks do not exist or operate in isolation. The value of Risk Insights Explorer is the ability to see and make sense of the connections between Risks. Risks can either be the source of uncertainty e.g. Rate of climate change, or the target e.g. Availability of fresh water.

Hover over a Risk to see its most important connections.

Risk Insights Explorer – Connectivity Map

Since we have insight into the connections between risks, we then asked, is it possible to identify and respond to those risks that have the greatest influence? By determining the direction from Source to Target, and measuring the strength of the connection on a scale from 0 to 5, it is a straightforward process to establish the most influential – and influenced – risks. Calculating Influence in this way enables, for example, management to respond differently to highly influential risks, putting in place additional monitoring if necessary and targeting the impact of the Influence as well as the Risk element itself.

Menu Bar and template data sets

Explorer Menu Bar
Explorer Menu bar

Use the menu bar to Filter the data or select a new data set. If they have been set up then data can be filtered by Assessment, Category or Scenario.

Assessment usually refers to a time period such as Quarter or Year but could equally refer to a company division, function or site.

Category can either be hierarchical as found in a Risk Taxonomy or – more importantly – set up as Uncertainty Factors. Read more on our website on how this can drive significant insight for your business.

You can select a different Data set using the Data menu. The following demonstration data sets are include:

  • WEF Demo – Replicates the World Economic Forum 2018 Risk Report updated to include scenario risk assessments using exclusive Risk Insights analysis of event impacts.
  • HS2 Demo – HS2 is a new UK high-speed rail network from London to Manchester with a projected cost of £56 billion, up from the initial projection of £32.7 billion. The first phase is due to open in December 2026, but this has been called “overly ambitious”. This dataset supports the infographic here.
  • Mr Whimsy – A good friend recently came into some money and wants to invest it all in his life-long dream – Mr Whimsy’s Ice Cream Emporium! This dataset supports the infographic here.
  • Project Pipeline – Based on a case study from the risk paper: Estimation and evaluation of uncertainty: a minimalist first pass approach, this dataset is a simple illustration of the power of Risk Insights Explorer as a tool to support decision-making.

Everything changes

Welcome to the first production change log.   We hope you enjoy the following new features:

  • Connectivity – For the influenced / influential score calculations, we now filter the risk by their parameter instead of category
  • Connectivity – increase the upper limit of the node size range
  • Connectivity – initially draw the map in the background in order to get a better layout
  • Landscape map – ignore and hide the parameter filter

We bought a cake to celebrate – but some bugs ate it.  So we squished them:

  • Connectivity – fix the hide/show labels on node hover
  • Node info – the label change was not saved successfully
  • Results Engine – the changes in the rounding of the values in the last line (Current estimate of … is … in the range … to …)

Risk Insights Explorer: A uniquely adaptable solution

The Risk insights Explorer is a uniquely adaptable solution for undertaking  top-down risk assessments and strategic scenario modelling.  In addition to the flexibility built-in through the use of each organisations own risk taxonomies, the Explorer can be configured to support the identification of risk interconnections with trends, emerging (upstream) risks, or programme life-cycle stage analysis.