Using the Outcome Identification Loop

The Outcome Identification Loop asks four questions around a given outcome which can be very valuable in understanding a proposed design, event, or risk.

The four questions are:

1	Who else might this affect?	Stakeholder Question
2	What else might affect them?	Stakeholder Impact Question
3	What else might affect this?	System/analysis Design Question
4	What else might this affect?	Consequence Question?

4 questions in the Outcome Identification Loop

Through answering these questions, outcomes and relationships to further define a central question, and can be used to shape problem-solving, risk mitigation, and process improvement.

Questions 1 “Who else might this affect?’ and 2 “What else might affect them?’ are paired questions from stakeholder identification and analysis techniques.

Question 3 “What else might affect this?” relates to system analysis and design and can be fed by, and lead to, the chains of outcomes elicited using analysis methods, such as process modelling and root cause analysis.

Question 4 “What else might this affect?” considers uncertainty and risk.

These four questions can be iterative. Use them near the beginning to define the problem and then at the end to tie together the entire work.

Information Gaps

An information gap is a known unknown, a question that one is aware of but for which one is uncertain of the answer. It is a disparity between what the decision maker knows and what could be known The attention paid to such an information gap depends on two key factors: salience, and importance.

The salience of a question indicates the degree to which contextual factors in a situation highlight it. Salience might depend, for example, on whether there is an obvious counterfactual in which the question can be definitively answered.
The importance of a question is a measure of how much one’s utility would depend on the actual answer. It is this factor—importance—which is influenced by actions like gambling on the answer or taking on risk that the information gap would be relevant for assessing.

Information gaps often dwell in the land of knightian uncertainty.

Communicating these Known Unknowns

Communicating around Known Unknowns and other forms of uncertainty

A wide range of reasons for information gaps exist:

variability within a sampled population or repeated measures leading to, for example, statistical margins-of-error
computational or systematic inadequacies of measurement
limited knowledge and ignorance about underlying processes
expert disagreement.

Environment, Health and Safety and the compliance domain

Benefits of Written Rules:
Capture important learnings and assumptions
Establish a standardized, organized and reproducible, method of conducting work safely
Ensure effective transfer of knowledge to new members of the group
Require disciplined thinking to formally document thus reducing errors in processes
Create a framework for delegation of decision-making
Demonstrate the organizations commitment to safety
Chet Brandon “Tried and True: Written Procedures are a Foundation of EHS Success“

I don’t think there is a quality person who would read that list and not nod knowingly. Reading the excellent article quoted above reminded me that we all probably do EHS, Quality and compliance in general all wrong.

Yes, Health & Safety is about the employee; Quality is about the product (and legal is about following the law and finance does something about money) but what when you look at the tools we pretty much have a common tool-box. Root cause analysis, procedures, risk management, system thinking.

What is truly different is the question we ask:

Quality asks about the customer
Health and Safety asks about the employee
Environment asks about, well, the environment

I find it fascinating that it became environment, health and safety and most companies, as again, the question asked is rather different. In companies where care of the environment is separate (such as the energy industry) you will definitely see it as a separate entity.

I have only been at one company that was on the path of looking at quality, environment, health and safety were all similar disciplines and united them under a chief compliance officer (who was also head of legal). My current company is still struggling along the path of uniting standards and tools.

There is definitely a lot of different domain knowledge between the three, the same way quality is different between industries. However the commonalities that unite us are many and ones we should spend more time exploring.