In reply to Simon Lee:
> (In reply to Adam L)
>
> >I have recognised that another way I could have approached the article could have been to start with 'obvious' risks (ie pushing yourself on a hard lead) which I believe represents the tip of the proverbial iceberg as to what is likely to kill you when engaged in climbing then gone onto to what I did cover which was the less obvious.
I wasn't suggesting that. The main initial thrust of your article is that risk is vague and unquantifiable. It isn't. I apply these principles whether managing a rope access team, soloing alone or climbing multi-pitch extremes. They work.
>>Risk assessment is quantifying the in the box stuff and is still dependent on inferences. There is a lot of stuff outside the box. Approaching things indivividualistically I am concerned with what is likely to harm me rather than the general poulation statistically - figures which are often misleading anyway.
I don't agree; you misunderstand it. Yes, office based risk assessments contain lots of routine irrelevancies that most would file under common sense. However you are free to leave these at work, and simply apply the relevant principles when at play.
>>We all have to use judgements and assess things to weight Risk in our favour but whilst using fishbone diagrams has the appearance of non-vagueness does it wholly encapsulate, quantify and disect the overall risk ?
Never heard of a fishbone diagram. The only approach to understanding danger is to break it into constituents. No one is suggesting this can cover everything. You seem to be the one determined to keep it as a diaphonous 'overall' which you can then dismiss as vague.
>>My wife is project manager and she attempts to practice PRINCE which is Project Management In a Controlled Environment. The key problem is the 'Controlled Environment' bit.
As I said, the principles apply. Mountains are not a controlled environment, too uncontolled for you in fact, and yet these principles are used worldwide to assess avalanche risks.
I think you're missing a big opportunity to 'stand on the shoulders of giants' here. Lots of work has been done on this subject and its application has shown to be very powerful whatever the environment.
I want to be 'an individual' as much as you, and I like to think of climbing as something 'different', but I'm not going to let that make me blind to understanding risk.