QW2002 Paper 1G2 Mr. Erik Simmons (Intel Corporation) The Human Side of Risk

Key Points

• We must better understand our tendencies and limitations as humans when it comes to assessing risks and estimating their severity and probability.
• We must better understand how the way we express a risk influences someone's response to it.
• We must better understand how culture, values, corporate history, and similar factors influence risk perception and management.

Presentation Abstract

A quick search using the terms Risk, Management, and Assessment on an Amazingly large book Website turns up 249 books on the topic, not to mention the chapters and sections devoted to various aspects of risk in texts on project management. Add hundreds of magazines, articles, conference proceedings, presentations, and courses at public and private institutions and you come up with a very large body of knowledge indeed.

But, the vast majority of that material concerns the analytical side of risk assessment and management. It's the other side of risk - the human side - where we need to increase our knowledge. If we don't, even the best analytical methods will be ineffective.

About the Author

Erik Simmons has 15 years experience in multiple aspects of software and quality engineering. Erik currently works as Platform Quality Engineer in the Platform Quality Methods group, part of the Corporate Quality Network at Intel Corporation. He is responsible for Requirements Engineering practices at Intel, and lends support to several other corporate software and product quality initiatives.

Erik is a member of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference Board of Directors and the Steering Committee of the Rose City SPIN. He holds a Masters degree in mathematical modeling and a Bachelors degree in applied mathematics from Humboldt State University in California, and was appointed to the Clinical Faculty of Oregon Health Sciences University in 1991.