Is Risk Thinking Going Mainstream?

I sing in a chamber choir – rehearsals though have, of course, been over Zoom in recent months. I’m on the choir committee and we’ve been discussing what we might need to do to get back to singing together in the real world. And the conductor showed us a Risk Assessment that he’d been working on! I was really impressed. It showed different categories to consider for risks such as preparation for rehearsal, attendee behaviour during rehearsals, rehearsal space etc. The risks had been brainstormed. Each are scored for Likelihood and Impact. These scores were multiplied to determine a Risk Score. Mitigations were listed to try to reduce the high Risk Scores. Then each risk was re-scored assuming the mitigation is implemented – to see whether the score is now acceptable. We went through the risk assessment process and the main mitigation actions we needed to take were:

1. 1. Maintain social distancing at all times and wear masks when not singing.
  2. Register all attendees for track and trace purposes.
  3. No sharing of music, pencils, water etc. Choir members need to bring their own music.
  4. Rehearsal limited to one hour, then a 15 minute break where the room is ventilated, then continue with rehearsal to prevent unacceptable build-up of aerosols. Ideally, people go outside during break (if not too cold).
  5. Clear instructions to the choir before, during and after. Including making it clear the rehearsal is not risk-free and no-one is obliged to attend.

Which I thought was pretty good.

It really intrigued me that a small choir would be completing something like this. I helped develop the MCC’s Risk Assessment & Mitigation Management Tool 2.0 and there are interesting similarities – the brainstorming of risks, the use of Likelihood and Impact to provide a Risk Score, the mitigations, and the re-scoring to see if the Risk Score is at an acceptable level. And there are some differences too – in particular, there is no score for Detectability. I’ve often heard at meetings in the MCC and with other clients how difficult it is in clinical trials to get people really thinking critically for risk assessments. And how challenging the risk assessment can be to complete. I wonder if COVID-19 is helping to bring the concept of risk more into the mainstream (as mentioned in an article in the New Scientist on risk budgeting) and that might make it easier for those involved in clinical trials to think this way too?

Unfortunately, within days of us completing the choir rehearsal risk assessment, the government announced a new national lockdown. Which has stopped us moving forward for now. But we’re ready when restrictions ease. Zoom rehearsals for a while longer!