Should we ask “What if”

rather than say “Never will”?

COMMENTARY

By Gareth Pugsley

United Kingdom

Abstract

Do we give more credit to impact that probability? (Rickman, Wiśniowski, Wajer, Gabryszewski, Valsecchi, 2014) Are we stuck in our risk ways? (Cox Jr, 2009). I propose that we are. That we ignore the “What if” and justify it with the “Never will”, we then further add insult with could never have foreseen when it does happen.

Do we spend to long trying to decide if it’s a black swan, a grey rhino or a risk ferret and the book sales we can do from publishing the idea and less trying new ideas and testing old ones?

Reasoning behind the idea

Even back in 1997 the question of modelling problems and lack of success and improvement was discussed (Rasmussen,1997) with dynamic society spoke of this. But has really anything changed? Risk is still thought of as financial and that the cost management should be the only voice with it. This holds it back and is not what risk really is. What risk is, is another paper but it is a more than just cost it is impact and reputation. Yes, these all feedback to a cost but weather to take that as the baseline of decision I disagree.

(De Marchi, Ravetz,1999) only 2 years later than last paper spoke about the lack of thinking about risk in other ways that quantitative. speaking of the BSE out break and others. How ironic that 20 years later an outbreak known for longer than that caused havoc around the world. (Teller, Kock, Gemünden,2014.) speak of contingency planning in 2014 and this could have started the idea of this notion of what if but just 6 years later the what if became the now and it had no planning set for it.

“Inadequate risk handling within a corporation not only precipitates a decline in asset value but also has the potential to propagate failure across other entities, potentially culminating in a broader collapse within capital markets (Huang, Hu, Hsu,2025.) this quote I feel was due to the frustration of lack of correct risk planning for the pandemic. (de León, Bogardi, Dannenmann, Basher, 2006) spoke about early warning of this type of disaster nearly 2 decades earlier yet again the Never will was louder than the What if.

I can now hear all those reading this saying about the cost of planning for something that will never happen or not for a very long time. To those I would say what’s the cost when they do happen and you have no plan? Probability says they will happen as not zero, so was that small work to have any plan waisted.

More…

To read entire article, click here

How to cite this work: Pugsley, G. (2025).  Should we ask “What if?” rather than say “Never will”? commentary, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue IV, April.  Available online at http://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pmwj151-Apr2025-Pugsley-should-we-ask-what-if-rather-than-say-never-will.pdf

About the Author

Gareth Pugsley

Durham Gate, UK

Gareth Pugsley is a fellow of the Association for Project Management (APM) and head of the APM Risk Interest network. He is an APM teacher of 6 years to apprentices and has been published previously in the PM World Journal.  He holds 2 masters and undergrad degrees, all in project management, and looks forward to building a reputation in this field. He can be contacted at www.learningcurvegroup.co.uk