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In this last episode of Season 8 of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis wrap up the season’s overall theme of Criticality and Control.

They look at what engineers should do when internal standards, design duties under WHS legislation and the safest outcome for a project point in different directions. Drawing on two dangerous goods and tunnel projects, they show why each job needs to be assessed on its own merits, and why a relative risk argument backed by additional controls can sometimes support a different answer than the Standard of the day. They also cover how Standards lag behind technology and business changes, and why a documented due diligence process matters as much as the outcome.

If you’d like us to cover a specific topic or have any feedback we’d love to hear from you. Email admin@r2a.com.au. For further information on R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au, where you’ll also find booklets (store) and a sign-up for a newsletter to keep informed of their latest news and events.

Timestamps

• 00:40 – Season 8 recap: ten episodes
• 01:41 – 7,500 downloads milestone
• 03:03 – Dangerous goods and tunnels
• 05:45 – Relative risk and additional controls
• 06:54 – Internal standards versus designer duties
• 08:23 – Why Standards lag
• 10:02 – Due diligence as governance
• 10:41 – Criticality and control wrap-up

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In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss Culture, Criticality and Controls in terms of Ethics and Quality Assurance.

Starting from Thomas Kuhn’s idea of paradigm shifts, they look at why Australia’s defence exports are largely defensive and how that protective instinct is reflected in WHS legislation.

They also cover how splitting the world into narrow domains weakens decision-making, why the order of project success criteria changes stakeholder thinking, and why quality assurance is needed to confirm the controls actually work.

If you’d like us to cover a specific topic or have any feedback we’d love to hear from you. Email admin@r2a.com.au. For further information on Richard and Gaye’s consulting work with R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au, where you’ll also find their booklets (store) and a sign-up for their quarterly newsletter to keep informed of their latest news and events.

Summary notes

• 00:41 – The three Cs: culture, criticality, controls
• 00:56 – Paradigms and Kuhn’s generational change
• 02:33 – Australia’s defensive defence exports
• 05:15 – WHS intent and the protective culture
• 06:19 – Siloed domains and due diligence
• 09:15 – Budget as the last success criterion
• 09:59 – Quality assurance: did controls work?
• 11:16 – Compulsory voting and embracing culture

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In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss co-operation versus competition policy in project due diligence.

Drawing on the postgraduate course they teach at Swinburne University, they explain why projects so often go wrong; that being the objective was never clearly articulated, or foreseeable problems were never built into it. They look at how trust, transparency and having the right people in the room let clients and contractors share risk instead of fighting over it, and what is lost when corporate memory walks out the door.

If you’d like us to cover a specific topic or have any feedback we’d love to hear from you. Email admin@r2a.com.au.

For further information on R2A, head to https://www.r2a.com.au, where you’ll also find booklets (store) and a sign-up for their quarterly newsletter to keep informed of our latest news and events.

Timestamps

• 00:35 – Co-operation versus competition in projects
• 00:53 – Swinburne project due diligence course
• 01:16 – Why projects go wrong
• 03:58 – Trust as the basis of co-operation
• 05:07 – Right people in the room
• 06:00 – Trust-based builder example
• 09:45 – Corporate memory loss
• 11:30 – Transparency and shared protection
• 12:51 – Criticality and control: designing out risk