This week, we move away from financial risks to consider operational risks. This covers everything from workplace accidents, to processing errors, fraud events, natural hazards like fire and storm, system outages, and project risks. One of the main themes of this week is the need to learn from past risk events to never waste a good crisis. As Douglas Adams said, "Human beings who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from experience, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." One of the reasons that learning from past events is so useful is that for the human species, stories have incredible power. You'll remember from communicate with impact, that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools of influencing, and we'll explore this truth in the context of risk management. But the past doesn't provide us just with stories. If you're collecting data then the past provides a rich dataset for analysis which can be used to justify investment in risk management. In this lesson, we'll do some quantitative analysis of risk events and illustrate the benefits of quantification to figuring out a suitable treatment response. Once again, it's important to remember that even senior leaders need to have a basic understanding of quantitative methods if they are being used to make important decisions. Without a basic understanding, how can a leader interpret reports or asks those searching questions or probe those assumptions? You've probably gathered by now that I'm a big fan of quantitative risk assessment wherever good data available. But on the first to admit that in some cases, relevant data are nonexistent and subjective risk assessment is necessary. While subjective risk assessment is never first choice, in this lesson, we'll look at some of the ways that we might mitigate potential problems, and make subjective risk assessments as effective as possible. The learning outcomes for this week are, one, generate insights from past risk events. Two, select risk assessment techniques appropriate to the context. Three, proposed treatments for operational risks. Hope you find lots to challenge and interest you this week, starting with one of the best risk event cases of all. The sinking of the Titanic.