Quotes About Risk

Go forth with crowds; in loneliness is danger.

What's the worst that can happen during planning? Maybe your whiteboard is accidentally erased. What's the worst that can happen during delivery? Your drill breaks through the ocean floor, flooding the tunnel.

Almost any nightmare you can imagine can happen—and has happened—during delivery. You want to limit your exposure to this. You do it by taking all the time necessary to create a detailed, tested plan. Planning is relatively cheap and safe; delivering is expensive and dangerous. Good planning boosts the odds of a quick, effective delivery, keeping the window on risk small and closing it as soon as possible.

WATCH YOUR DOWNSIDE It's often said that opportunity is as important as risk. That's false. Risk can kill you or your project. No upside can compensate for that. For fat-tailed risk, which is present in most projects, forget about forecasting risk; go directly to mitigation by spotting and eliminating dangers.

KNOW THAT YOUR BIGGEST RISK IS YOU It's tempting to think that projects fail because the world throws surprises at us: price and scope changes, accidents, weather, new management—the list goes on. But this is shallow thinking.

Exhaustive planning that enables swift delivery, narrowing the time window that black swans can crash through, is an effective means of mitigating this risk. Finishing is the ultimate form of black swan prevention; after a project is done, it can't blow up, at least not as regards delivery.

The critical next step is to stop thinking of black swans the way most people do. They are not bolt-from-the-blue freak accidents that are impossible to understand or prevent. They can be studied. And mitigated.

There are five project types that are not fat-tailed. That means they may come in somewhat late or over budget but it's very unlikely that they will go disastrously wrong. The fortunate five? They are solar power, wind power, fossil thermal power (power plants that generate electricity by burning fossil fuels), electricity transmission, and roads. In fact, the best-performing project types in my entire database, by a comfortable margin, are wind and solar power.

By now you know the solution to the puzzle I discussed at the end of the previous chapter: Only five project types—solar power, wind power, fossil thermal power, electricity transmission, and roads—are not fat-tailed, meaning that they, unlike all the rest, do not have a considerable risk of going disastrously wrong. So what sets the fortunate five apart? They are all modular to a considerable degree, some extremely so.

First, you can't build a nuclear power plant quickly, run it for a while, see what works and what doesn't, then change the design to incorporate the lessons learned.

Finally, don't forget black swans. All projects are vulnerable to unpredictable shocks, with their vulnerability growing as time passes. So the fact that the delivery of your one huge thing will take a very long time means that it is at high risk of being walloped by something you cannot possibly anticipate.

We would add to this that regarding cost overruns there is no indication that the calamity identified by the Major Projects Association is limited to the public sector. Private sector cost overruns are also common.

The infirmity of human nature renders all plans precarious in the execution in proportion as they are extensive in design.

I've heard about you Each word about you That ev'ryone has spoken And from the things I hear I should be careful, dear They come and find me And then remind me Of all the hearts you've broken But I'm in love with you So what am I to do? I'm playing with fire

There is no single, correct objective in mountaineering; there are only possibilities. One of them leads beyond the impossible. - Reinhold Messner

A failed attempt on a virgin face of an eight thousander gives me much more than the successful ascent of a known route.

where mountains are sacred & where risk & death are constant companions- the Himalayas.

In contrast, his parents considered climbing a completely useless and dangerous activity.

The most dangerous of our calculations are those we call illusions.

Void fascinates those who daren't look into it. They throw themselves in, for fear of falling.

Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars.

Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can't be done, except by liars.

A leader leads," Ragnar said, "and you can't ask men to risk death if you're not willing to risk it yourself.

I made my money by selling too soon.