Where Next? Risk’s Biggest Question

COMMENTARY

By Gareth Pugsley

United Kingdom

This to me is the biggest question facing Risk at the current time, also project management but that is a separate topic.  This question of what next is aimed at how we think about Risk, plan for manage it? We have started to become stale and roll the same ideas around with a different name or colour or animal but the same under it. (Peale, 2012) If we don’t start to look for these or ask these questions then we Risk, excuse the pun, the chance of becoming obsolete. Replacement buy AI and all that has been learnt to this point gone. The issues that probability is still taken over impact even with the obvious flaw of 3 body problem showing that prediction of anything larger than 3 objects, process is near impossible with any kind of reliability or accuracy. (Marchal, Yoshida, Yi-Sui,1984)

So, if we take that 3-body problem does effect Risk as in it shows all cannot be planned for then, where do we draw the line of management as guessing and how to do we account for this?

I see many different systems and concepts (REF)and they are based on old terms and ideas but when will we start looking to a new idea that ignores the current thinking and for this we could use design thinking as a start, It would mean ignore all and add any possible ideas this could pull the blinkers of to a better way.

We Could start with defining what Risk is as a place to begin this investigation into new ideas. An agreement could set the foundation for a new tower of thought. If we agree what Risk then if we can define it, if we can define what maybe we can start to see what might cause it. Now this object we now can tick in a box has a face and target to search.

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How to cite this work: Pugsley, G. (2025).  Where Next? Risk’s Biggest Question, commentary, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue VI, June. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/pmwj153-Jun2025-Pugsley-Where-next-risks-biggest-question.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