Risk taxonomy: Difference between revisions

This exercise can occupy as little — a breakout session on an away-day — or as much — the permanent task of a dedicated division in the department — of your firm's intellectual capacity as you have going spare: organisations that run to the bureaucratic<ref>''You'' know who you are.</ref> may become so swooned by this notion that they can find little time to do anything else. For how can one asses the risks of a transaction if one doesn't know from which family of what genus in what species it hails?

Any [[taxonomy]] is a [[narrative]]. Like any hierarchical organising system, a [[taxonomy]] commits you to ''one'' way of looking at the world, ''at the expense of all others''. Now this a necessary evil when it comes to concrete physical things, like books: the [[Dewey decimal system]] is a single hierarchy — a ''[[narrative]]'' — by necessity: a physical thing cannot be in two places at once. So all library users agree a common taxonomy (subject matter, not author, or title, or publisher) and, for better or worse, stick to it.  

But ''legal'' risks ''aren’t'' concrete things. They have no concrete existence at all. They’re amorphous, will-o’-the-wisp, they are [[black swan]]s — the biggest risks don’t necessarily exist on the frame of consciousness of even the most paranoid [[risk controller]] ''before they happen''. Indeed, ''that '''is''' the risk''. New risks will, by definition, inhibit the seams, cracks and weak joints of your narrative — they will prompt your change in [[narrative]]. Their scars will prompt you to build a new stable around the space where the horse ''you didn’t even know was there'' turns out to have been standing before it bolted. Subtly, the [[general counsel]] will mandate a new [[service catalog]]. {{sex|He}} will commission a working group to build a new [[risk taxonomy]].