Posted By Jon B
After hearing alot about dynamic risk assessement recently I got to thinking, and my thoughts may strike a chord with the many ex forces who seem common in this vocation. Since long before my time in the reserves the army used something called a battle appreciation and more recently the combat estimate (another Americanisation).

Without breaching the OS Act and being carted off for reasons of national security, both systems involved assessing a situation using a set of factors and coming up with the best course of action.

If you replace these factors - Ground, Enemy, Friendly Forces etc with - The working environment, the hazards, assets at your disposal. What you are starting to get is a dynamic risk assessement. Anyone agree ?

From there we were taught to asked all the important questions (Who, Why, What, When, Where) the most important being WHAT IF!

After all this consideration you would select the best course of action (And if the commander was any good the one with least risk and best chance of success!!)

When these simple drills are practiced often enough they become second nature, there is little need to write or record anything (other than maybe a few key points). The process can then be employed to assess an infinite variety of situations.

If this system has got the forces through 30 + yearsI would say there must be merit in it and the Fire Brigade amongst others should be commended in adopting similar.

Anyone care to comment on the comparison? - or even tear my theory to pieces?

regards

Jon B

Posted By steven bentham
Yep, sounds good to me.

A lot of the thinking behind the risk assessment approach seems to be either x USA Military or Space thinking - both extremely high risk situations where the risks need to be fully appreciated.

Posted By Jon B
Glad to see I'm not completely delusional and hadn't imagined to similarities.

I certainly agree Heather, higher levels do and should to document the RA and post incident reporting. My initial thoughts were geared towards the lower level operations - probably best akin to the smaller scale brigade incident for example or a first response. I would also hope - please correct if I am wrong all Fire brigade (or anyone else using the Dynamic RA) - post incident reports are done as a matter of course.

I havent done much background reading on the brigade concept of dynamic RA or how far up the level of command it is used, I assume at higher levels they too have the need of written procedures particularly at major incidents.

Incidently I viewed the hazards involved as 'the enemy' though some may find a more apt use for the word ;-)

The conclusion I am tending to draw is so long as the technique is fully ingrained by training etc, it can be, as has proved to be very effect tool.

Jon B