Development of a methodology for understanding the potency of risk connectivity

The Strategic Risk Register System (SRRS) is proposed by the writers as a practical methodology to enable the connectivity of risks to be elicited and evaluated so that the most potent risks in a system can be identified. The SRRS methodology builds on the impact x likelihood paradigm by introducing a connectivity matrix to modify traditional risk registers and uses graph theories to depict the relations between risks. Several techniques are employed to visualize and interpret the significance of the results. A case study is used to demonstrate how the SRRS works in practice. This paper builds on the 3-year research program called STRATrisk, commissioned by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) in the UK, which reported that the assessment of the interconnectivity of risks is necessary to understand key risks in complex systems.