Prince Andrew and police protection

[mileshawk56]

Maninder,"Risk based planning" of what?(apart from risk)and at the risk of being registered as a cynic on your computor that sounds like a nice little earner. Chris.S

[MSS]

Originally Posted by mileshawk56

Maninder,"Risk based planning" of what?(apart from risk)and at the risk of being registered as a cynic on your computor that sounds like a nice little earner. Chris.S

Chris - I would not consider you a cynic in any form.

In my case, design, development and deployment of national telecomms infrastructure. Obviously I will not go into details.

In reality, most professional programme managers would have significant risk assessment and management responsibilities.

Think in terms of deploying a new type of broadband core network just before the UK Olympics. The risk level may be low, but the consequences for the telecomms company's and UK's reputation would be enormous should there be problems during the Olympics. This is not dissimilar to risk assessment for personal protection of individuals. It's the unknown/unquantified risks - risks not understood - that often lead to serious consequences. So a competent person would put in provisions to handle the unknowns.

In my view, to focus on risk in the case of Prince Harry as being done here is a distraction. He has a risk profile for being who he is. The issue is that the policy as understood by him appears to be one of non-provision of protection. Personally, I would give greater weight to his understanding of what is on offer than forum experts.

[MSS]

Chris - you may like the following quote:

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld"

It's the last category that risk based approaches usually do not allow for and end up getting you.

[another_clean_sheet]

[QUOTE=MSS;2918369]
Based on 30+ years of personal experience of risk based planning, here is how things often go in relation to risk assessment and management.....
/QUOTE]


As a programme/project manager I was used to doing risk planning. However I used to do opportunity planning at the same time and you would often find that the financial impact (and schedule impact) of opportunities was greater than the impact of the risks and one would end up with an increase in the fee/profit of the project.

[MSS]

[QUOTE=another_clean_sheet;2918386]

Originally Posted by MSS

Based on 30+ years of personal experience of risk based planning, here is how things often go in relation to risk assessment and management.....
/QUOTE]


As a programme/project manager I was used to doing risk planning. However I used to do opportunity planning at the same time and you would often find that the financial impact (and schedule impact) of opportunities was greater than the impact of the risks and one would end up with an increase in the fee/profit of the project.

That's a good point. But how did you balance the cost of the failure due to the unknown unkowns?

The same applies when somone is killed, injured or a bomb goes off. The opportunities where the resources could have been or were deployed become irrelevant.

Let me test this. Are you saying that if something should happen to Prince Harry, that would be acceptable because the opportunities or resource deployments elsewhere were considered more attractive from an opportunity perspective?

Originally Posted by MSS

Clearly, your knowledge of the protection to be available for Prince Harry is greater than his own.

No, I just know that anyone visiting the UK who believes they are at risk can contact UK authorities before they travel. If they are then considered to be at risk they will receive appropriate measures. These measures could range anywhere from mere advice to a fully armed team of police or military protection officers. It all depends on the assessed risk at that time.

I'm not a project manager etc so cannot comment on that.

[another_clean_sheet]

[QUOTE=MSS;2918391]

Originally Posted by another_clean_sheet

That's a good point. But how did you balance the cost of the failure due to the unknown unkowns?

The same applies when somone is killed, injured or a bomb goes off. The opportunities where the resources could have been or were deployed become irrelevant.

Let me test this. Are you saying that if something should happen to Prince Harry, that would be acceptable because the opportunities or resource deployments elsewhere were considered more attractive from an opportunity perspective?

No, I was replying to Post#30 which was on the more general topic of risk assessment rather than the Prince Harry security saga.