Three things to remember before building bowtie diagrams
Discover the common pitfalls to avoid in order to succeed with bowtie diagrams for risk management
A bowtie diagram is a visual representation of the safety net created to support an organization's risk management efforts. Like a safety net, the bowtie diagram demonstrates the interconnectedness of factors, highlighting the cause-and-effect relationships between hazards, controls, and consequences. It provides a clear and concise overview of risk management strategies, allowing organizations to understand and communicate how they are protecting themselves from potential harm. But there are a few common pitfalls that organizations should be aware of before starting to create bowties to support their barrier management strategy.
Organizations should keep the following in mind:
- The bowtie planning process is critical: Before starting to discuss barriers and strengths, it’s important to define the goals of the bowtie diagram. What’s the bowtie’s purpose for your organization? Is it simply to illustrate the control mechanisms that are in place for key stakeholders, or will it be used as a dynamic tool for incident management? All participants need to agree on the purpose and goals for the bowtie before starting to build.
- Failure to update and maintain the diagrams: Bowtie diagrams should be living documents that evolve with the organization's changing risk landscape. However, organizations often make the mistake of treating the diagrams as one-time creations and fail to update them regularly. As new information becomes available, risk controls change or incidents occur, it's crucial to review and update the bowtie diagrams to reflect the current state of risks and controls.
- Insufficient communication and understanding: Bowtie diagrams serve as powerful communication tools to convey risk information to various stakeholders. However, organizations may fail to effectively communicate the diagrams' content, assumptions, ownership and limitations. It is important to ensure that stakeholders understand the purpose, structure, and meaning of the bowtie diagrams to promote consistent risk understanding across the organization.
Bowties diagrams are valuable tools to enhance barrier management and engage stakeholders, but organizations should have a plan in place and the necessary resources available to keep the diagram up to date.
If you’re looking to learn more about bowtie diagrams and barrier management, watch the free webinar here.
Author: Cees de Regt
7/5/2023 10:00:00 AM