Should you be assessing risk like NASA?
There are a variety of metrics we can use to assess the risks and benefits of decisions. Informally, I love a good pro-con list, but for NASA, risk assessment is a matter of life, death, and millions of dollars, so it’s unsurprising that they have a method for rating risk scope and likelihood.
Here are just a few things NASA takes into account, and along the way, I’ll play around with how they might translate (or not) for dealing with human and social issues.
Likelihood of risk
NASA rates the likelihood of risk on a 1 (not likely) to 5 (near certainty) scale, where “near certainty” is over 80% probability of the risk occurring. I don’t know about you, but the probability of risk in my social and organizational life is not as clear-cut as the ability to run numbers on the likelihood of a spacecraft crash landing. It’s even harder because we tend to think we are slightly above average in intelligence, luck, and hotness, so, just keep in mind that whatever number you assign is probably an underestimation. Optimism is survival as a human.
How bad is it?
NASA also has a scale for rating the consequences of risk across 5 areas, including schedule, cost, and human and property damage. I love this chart and think it could translate well when prioritizing workflows and career moves:
I especially like the performance category, given how often I can get caught up in a task at work that has both “minimal consequence” to my objectives and will only cause minor discomfort if I don’t do it–saying no to an FYI meeting, for example, might make me feel bad in the moment (because we all like being nice) but is unlikely to create broader issues related to work schedules or cost my university tons of money.
Next NASA asks you to take the top score out of these rankings (so if you rated every other category a 2 but listed schedule as a “4,” your total consequence score is still a 4). This is interesting to me as a disaster researcher, of course, because being off schedule or spending 15% more than anticipated (both 5s on this scale) does not equate to “loss of life” in my line of work…
Chart the risk
Next, you track your risk likelihood and consequence scores on this Girl Scout Cookie-colored chart, which gives you a number, on a scale of 1-25. Risks that chart in the green can be “watched” as long as they have mitigation plans. Risks in the yellow should go through “mitigation and contingency planning.” Importantly, NASA also separates internal and external risks at this point–if the risk is external, NASA moves on to the “Communicate, Control, and Track Risks” section of their document. This idea pairs nicely with only worrying about what you control in everyday life–but at the same time, do we really not plan for “external” risks? We buy home and trip insurance to deal with weather (ok I’m lying I’ve never purchased travel insurance and now hope my next trip isn’t doomed), we wear seatbelts in case another driver does something stupid, etc etc.
The line between “internal” and “external” risks isn’t so clear if you’re not talking about space flight. Nonetheless, I get the need to chart risks and assign them numbers. Thinking through risks as feelings, senses, and hunches is unsettling, especially when human lives are involved. I will point out, however, that the 1-25 numbers in the girl scout cookie chart are just numbers--they're still a way to rank risk based on perception of risk, which involves human judgement, which will never be a purely factual game. If charting risks helps you to think through them, it's a great system to move through your thought process. But it's never a guarantee of accuracy!