Port Expansion: Risk Assessment Without Scope or Criteria
A port authority is building a $480 million expansion: 2.4 million cubic metres of dredging, a new 400-metre berth, and a 36-month construction schedule. The environmental regulator requires a risk assessment before dredging approval, and a local community group has campaigned against the project over seagrass loss and construction traffic. The project team held a single four-hour risk workshop. Eight people attended: five project engineers, one scheduler, one cost controller, and the project director. No marine ecologist, community liaison officer, regulator, or contractor attended. The team identified 212 risks. “Cost overrun” was scored 16 (high) with the rationale “large project.” “Dredge plume impacts seagrass” was scored 8 (medium) with no rationale. The likelihood scale uses “possible” and “unlikely” without definitions; some participants used historical project experience, others used personal intuition. No scope statement or risk criteria were agreed before the workshop. The risk register is now being used to support the dredging approval. The regulator has asked how risks were evaluated and why the seagrass risk is Medium.
1. Identify the deficiencies in establishing scope, context, and risk criteria, and explain the consequences for the dredging approval.
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ISO 31000 6.2 requires scope, context, and risk criteria before assessment. The port project has gaps in all three.
- Scope: there is no agreed statement of objectives and boundaries beyond cost and schedule. Environmental approval, construction traffic, dredging methods, contractor interfaces, and operational port continuity are not explicitly in or out.
- Context: external context includes the regulator’s approval conditions, seagrass sensitivity, community opposition, legal challenges, and environmental data; internal context includes project governance, technical capability, and risk culture. None were analysed with the right expertise.
- Criteria: no risk appetite, tolerance, or evaluation thresholds were set. The team cannot explain why seagrass impact is “Medium” or what level would be unacceptable. “Cost overrun = 16 because large project” is not a criterion-based evaluation.
Consequences for the dredging approval are serious: the regulator cannot see a defensible evaluation; the community can challenge the process as tokenistic; treatment priorities may focus on cost while underplaying environmental harm; and decisions may be inconsistent across work packages.
Rework should begin with a scope and context workshop including the regulator, marine scientists, community liaison, construction contractor, and port operations. Define objectives (approval, environmental performance, schedule, cost, stakeholder trust), boundaries, assumptions, and criteria-including legal limits and zero-tolerance thresholds for protected habitat. Only then should risks be identified and analysed.
2. Redesign the risk assessment. What techniques, participants, and sequence would you use to produce a regulator-defensible result?
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A defensible redesign would separate framing, identification, analysis, and evaluation, with communication and consultation throughout.
- Frame (6.2): agree objectives, scope, interfaces, assumptions, and risk criteria; document them.
- Identify (6.3.2): use multiple techniques-HAZID for construction and dredging, bow-tie for major hazards (dredge plume, vessel collision, fuel spill), scenario analysis, site surveys, and structured interviews. Include marine ecologists, regulator, community representatives, contractor, port operations, and emergency services. Do not rely on one four-hour workshop.
- Analyse (6.3.3): define likelihood and consequence scales with descriptors. Use modelling or expert elicitation for dredge plume dispersion and seagrass sensitivity; assess control effectiveness, exposure, and uncertainty. Separate identification from scoring to reduce anchoring.
- Evaluate (6.3.4): compare against criteria; record rationale and confidence. If seagrass impact breaches a legal or zero-tolerance criterion, it cannot be “Medium” regardless of likelihood.
- Treat and monitor: link to approval conditions and construction controls; assign owners and review triggers.
Use independent facilitation and a diverse group. Techniques such as Delphi, reference class forecasting, and pre-mortem can improve estimates. The regulator should see the evidence trail, not just the register.
3. How would you address the biases evident in the workshop and improve the credibility of the evaluation?
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The workshop shows several biases:
- Anchoring: “cost overrun 16 because large project” anchors on size rather than evidence.
- Availability: participants used personal experience or intuition because no common data or definitions existed.
- Group homogeneity: eight engineers and no environmental or community expertise produced a narrow view; the seagrass risk received no rationale.
- Authority/groupthink: the project director’s presence may discourage challenge; a single session limits dissent.
- Optimism bias: construction teams often understate environmental and schedule risk.
Countermeasures:
- Independent facilitation and anonymous scoring before discussion.
- Diverse participants, including affected stakeholders and subject experts.
- Pre-mortem (“the approval failed-why?”), red-team review, and devil’s advocate.
- Reference class forecasting and historical data for cost and schedule.
- Defined scales, evidence logs, and calibration exercises.
- Separate identification from evaluation; require a written rationale for every significant score.
- Review by the regulator or an independent expert for high-consequence environmental risks.
The aim is not to eliminate judgement but to make it traceable and contestable. For seagrass, the team should assess consequence severity, legal limits, and uncertainty; if the consequence is potentially severe and uncertain, the precautionary approach and explicit criteria should drive evaluation, not a single “8.”