Book chapters
Why do people produce such poor risk assessments? I’m writing a book about risk assessment, drawing together everything I’ve learn in consultancy, training and in researching articles.
I’d love your help. Read my book, chapter by chapter, and your feedback could appear in my book.
I’ve laid out the plan for the chapters below – some are already drafted, a few are just notes and old articles that need pulling together (or pulling apart). Some titles might change, but this should give you an indication of the content and structure of the book.
You can use the Contact form to send me feedback. If you’d like to receive an email when I add or update a chapter, please subscribe to my ‘book club’. Your email address will be used only for information about the book, not for marketing (I honestly don’t do much marketing, so no fear there).
Introduction
Introduction: An explanation of what the book sets out to do.
Part one: Identify hazards - who will be harmed and how
Chapter 1: This starts with the theory behind the simple phrase ‘identify the hazards’ – and why it isn’t always as straightforward as it might first appear
Chapter 2: Better identification through better understanding of what you are assessing
Chapter 3: Using simple flowcharts to identify hazards – they may not be what you think they are
Chapter 4: How to meet your duty of care, and make sure you don’t leave anyone out of your risk assessments
Part two: Assessment and control - an iterative process
Chapter 5: The oversimplification of risk assessment and control
Chapter 6: Dealing with essential controls before you consider ‘reasonably practicability’
Chapter 7: The theory of assessment. This chapter turned out quite long, so I divided it into two:
- Chapter 7a: The theory of assessment
Chapter 7b: What’s wrong with how we do risk assessmentThis is followed by three chapters explaining some improved ways of doing the ‘assess’ or ‘evaluate’ step of risk assessment, with or without a matrix.
Chapter 8: Assessment without a matrix
Chapter 9: Assessment with a better matrix (if you insist!)
Chapter 10: Assesment – test your matrix
Chapter 11: How to generate better controls
Chapter 12: Is it enough, is it practicable?
Part three: Document, monitoring and review
Chapter 13: Documenting your findings, and where it goes wrong
Chapter 14: How to document your findings better – using other documents
Chapter 15: Document significant findings: why it doesn’t work in practice
Chapter 16: Document significant findings: A better way
Chapter 17: Effective and timely reviews of risk assessments and controls
The finale
What have we learned? What I hope you take away from this book.
Appendices
Appendix 1: Case studies by theme
Appendix 1 alternative: Case studies by date. A longer list of case studies which might replace the original one above.
Appendix 2: Answers to questions posed in each chapter (or extra detail I decided to remove after I’d written it, but wanted to be available)
Appendix 3: Lost HSE references: including all versions of INDG 163, and a few versions of HSG 65 (other documents might be added).
Would anything else help you to navigate the book? Do you want a glossary? Please use the Contact form to tell me what you’d find helpful.