Risk management - four fundamental principles.

Garrett should have fallen on sword | Adelaide Now: "A Royal Commission into Australian Government Administration in 1976 included a definitive statement on individual ministerial responsibility. Ministers 'are not held culpable - and in consequence bound to resign or suffer dismissal - unless the action which stands condemned was theirs, or taken on their direction, or was action with which they ought obviously to have been concerned'." This paragraph is cited by Dr. Dean Jaensch (Professor of Politics , Flinders University) in an article at page 22 of the Adelaide Advertiser, Thu 25 Feb 2010.

It reminds us that Minister Garrett, Toyota executives (given the current fiasco is the United States) , public servants in general and any responsible parties in a risk management issue need to focus on four things - and only four things:

When managing risk, the primary decision points - and therefore the key performance criteria - are:

(1) Identifying "what the risk is" (based on monitoring and the detection of hazards),

(2) Recognizing "what the risk means" (based on premising exposures and interpreting vulnerabilities),

(3) Communicating with "who has an interest" (based on identifying multiple stakeholders), and

(4) Organizing "who should do what" (based on implementing a collaborative management system).

Systems built around these performance criteria will adequately address key due diligence issues of "what you ought (i.e. be reasonably expected) to know, and do - about risks and their management".