Risk Identification Techniques

Risk identification is the starting point for every effective risk process. If you don’t spot the hazards early, everything that follows (assessment, controls, action tracking, verification) is working off incomplete information.

The challenge is that there isn’t one 'best' way to identify risk. Different situations need different techniques, and in practice you’ll usually combine two or three to get decent coverage.

Below is a practical (and still not exhaustive) set of risk identification techniques you can use across projects, operational change, maintenance, investigations, and day-to-day HSE work.

Risk Identification Tools

Brainstorming:

We checked and it's still ok to use the word 'brainstorming' to refer to a group of people generating ideas freely. This can be done in person (our favourite) or remotely, and while it may generate a lot of pretty marginal ideas it has the potential to generate a wide set of hazards, especially when you get the right mix of people in the room (operators, maintainers, supervisors, SMEs).

It works best when you give it structure, for example:

• Clear scope (What system/task/phase are we analysing?)
• Clear boundaries (What are we not covering?)
• A prompt set (Energy sources, interfaces, environment, SIMOPs, human factors)
• A facilitator who keeps it moving and prevents anchoring on one 'pet' risk

It can be done in person or remotely. Remote sessions can work well, but in-person sessions often surface more operational detail because people can point at drawings, walk the space, or sketch scenarios quickly.

SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats):

SWOT is commonly used in strategic planning, but it can also trigger useful risk insights—especially in organisational or programme-level risk.

A simple way to use SWOT for risk identification:

• Strengths can reveal dependency risks (What happens if this capability disappears?)
• Weaknesses often translate directly into vulnerabilities
• Opportunities can introduce change risks (New tech, new markets, new contractors)
• Threats highlight external risks (Supply chain, regulation, workforce scarcity)

SWOT is particularly useful early in a project, when you’re trying to build an initial risk picture before you move to more detailed analysis.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA):

Although RCA is used to analyse the underlying causes of an incident which has already occurred it's useful to use root cause to help to identify potential risks that could lead to similar problems in the future.

Root Cause Analysis  is a problem-solving technique used to identify the underlying causes of a problem or event, rather than just the surface symptoms.  Once they understand the root cause, we  can implement effective corrective and preventive actions to prevent similar issues from recurring.

The RCA process typically involves the following steps:

Define the Problem: Clearly articulate the problem or event that needs to be investigated.
Gather Information: Collect relevant data, such as incident reports, witness statements, and physical evidence.
Identify the Root Causes: Use techniques like the "5 Whys" or fishbone diagrams to drill down to the underlying causes of the problem.
Develop Corrective Actions: Implement solutions to address the root causes and prevent the problem from happening again.
Implement Corrective Actions: Execute the corrective actions and monitor their effectiveness.
Learn and Improve: Use the lessons learned from the RCA process to improve future performance and prevent similar incidents.

Common Techniques for Root Cause Analysis include

5 Whys: A simple but powerful technique that involves asking "Why?" five times to uncover the root cause. Imagine any request you've ever made of a small child and you'll get the general idea.
Fishbone Diagram (Cause and Effect Diagram): A visual tool that helps identify potential causes of a problem by categorising them into different categories (e.g., people, process, equipment, materials, environment).
Fault Tree Analysis (FTA): A graphical technique that models the logical relationships between events that lead to a specific failure - more about this below.

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA):

FMEA is a proactive technique used to identify how a system, component, or process might fail and what the consequences would be.

It’s especially useful when you want structure and comparability across multiple failure modes.

A typical FMEA workflow looks like:

• Define the system/process clearly
• Break it into functions (what must it do?)
• List potential failure modes for each function
• Identify effects (what happens if it fails?)
• Rate severity, likelihood, and detectability
• Calculate a prioritisation score (often RPN, though many organisations refine this)
• Define actions to reduce the highest risks
• Reassess after controls are implemented

FMEA is most effective when you have solid operational knowledge and data (maintenance history, failure records, inspection results), not just generic assumptions.

Fault Tree Analysis (FTA):

Fault Tree Analysis is a structured approach to identifying the potential causes of a system failure. It's a powerful tool for understanding complex systems and predicting potential problems.

It’s especially good for:

• Complex systems with multiple dependencies
• High-consequence “top events” where you need to understand causal logic
• Situations where you want to move beyond brainstorming into a more rigorous model

The FTA process involves:

• Define the top event (the failure you want to prevent)
• Decompose into contributing events using AND/OR logic
• Continue breaking down until you reach basic events you can control or measure
• Review the tree to identify critical pathways (minimal cut sets)
• Use the findings to target controls, maintenance, testing, or design changes

Understanding the potential causes of a system failure helps organisations to take proactive steps to prevent accidents, reduce downtime, and improve overall system reliability. FTA is particularly useful in safety-critical industries such as aerospace, nuclear power, and healthcare.

Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA):

A Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) is a systematic process used to identify potential hazards and assess the associated risks in a workplace or project. The goal of a HIRA is to proactively identify and mitigate hazards to prevent accidents, injuries, and illnesses.

The HIRA process typically involves the following steps:

HIRA is a broad, systematic approach used to identify hazards and assess risk levels across a workplace, project, or operational scope.

It often includes:

• Walk-through inspections and task observation
• Checklists to prompt hazard categories
• Engagement with the people doing the work
• Risk rating using a matrix (likelihood vs consequence)
• Identification of controls using the hierarchy of controls
• Assignment of actions and follow-up ownership
• Periodic review and refresh as conditions change

HIRA is often the “workhorse” method for operational environments because it scales well, supports repeatable reviews, and fits naturally into work planning.

Delphi Technique:

Probably named after the 'Oracle of Delphi' - the source of all wisdom in the temple of Apollo. This approach involves gathering a range of expert opinions on a particular scenario.

It’s useful when:

• You don’t have strong incident/failure data
• You need specialist insight quickly
• The risk picture is uncertain or emerging

Typically, you collect input from multiple experts (often anonymously), summarise it, then repeat in rounds to converge toward a shared view. It’s slower than brainstorming, but it can be higher quality when true expertise is required.

Choosing the Right Risk Identification Technique

The 'best technique depends on what you’re doing and what you have available.

A practical selection guide:

• Use brainstorming when you need fast coverage and operational insight
• Use SWOT when the risks are organisational, strategic, or change-driven
• Use RCA when you want to prevent recurrence based on real events
• Use FMEA when you need structured, comparable analysis of failure modes
• Use FTA when you need rigorous causal logic for high-consequence scenarios
• Use HIRA when you need a scalable, repeatable hazard-and-risk workflow
• Use Delphi when expertise is the limiting factor and data is weak

In practice, combinations work best. For example:

• Brainstorming + HIRA for quick-but-structured hazard capture
• RCA + FTA for deep dives after significant incidents or near misses
• SWOT + targeted FMEA for early-stage project risk shaping

A simple checklist for stronger risk identification

If you want better risk identification without adding bureaucracy, use this quick check before you finalise your hazard list:

• Scope is clear (Task/system/phase and boundaries defined)
• People who know the work were involved (Not just reviewers)
• Interfaces were considered (SIMOPs, contractors, handovers, adjacent activities)
• Energy sources were explicitly checked (Electrical, pressure, thermal, chemical, gravity, stored energy)
• Environment was considered (Weather, lighting, access/egress, ventilation, noise, sea state if offshore)
• Human factors were considered (Fatigue, competence, supervision, time pressure, usability of procedures)
• Failure history was reviewed (Incidents, near misses, maintenance records, inspection findings)
• Controls were challenged (Not “what do we do?”, but “what could bypass or degrade this control?”)
• Outputs are actionable (Clear hazards, clear controls, clear owners for follow-up)
• Review cadence is defined (When will this be revisited as conditions change?)

Risk and the Broader HSE landscape

Risk identification is not a standalone activity, it's the foundation upon which much of effective health, safety and environmental management is built. It feeds into, informs and strengthens a wide range of other HSE processes and systems. Because of this, getting risk identification right is not simply an early task in a single workflow; it is a discipline that .

Risk identification isn’t a standalone activity. It underpins the quality of multiple HSE processes and must be embedded consistently across the organisation’s entire safety ecosystem:

• Permit to Work depends on hazards being correctly identified up front
• Incident and near-miss reporting improves when hazards are captured consistently, not just outcomes
• Action tracking is only effective if actions address real causes, not symptoms
• Training and competence improves when hazard-spotting methods are taught and standardised
• Emergency preparedness depends on realistic scenarios and credible loss-of-control pathways

If risk identification is weak, everything downstream becomes fragile. If it’s strong, the whole safety system becomes more resilient, more proactive, and more efficient.