Present use of the term ‘risk’ is ambiguous. Best practice regards risk as encompassing both threat and opportunity, but guidance often speaks in terms of threat management, and in common parlance risk is more usually synonymous with threat. An obvious first step towards uncertainty management is to remove this ambiguity by using the term ‘uncertainty’ in the everyday sense of‘ lack of certainty’ as a starting point.
| Risk management | Uncertainty management |
| a downside risk | a threat (giving rise to downside risk) |
| an upside risk | an opportunity (giving rise to upside risk) a source of uncertainty |
| a risk (upside or downside) | a source of uncertainty |
| a (possible) source of risk a problem | an issue |
| an impact | a consequence/effect |
| a weakness | an issue |
| a poor allocation inadequate | an inappropriate/unclear allocation Inappropriate |
| avoid risk | resolve uncertainty |
| mitigate | modify |
| lack of | shortage or surplus of |
| major risk | significant uncertainty |
| absence of | availability of |