What-If Analysis: 7 Questions Before Controls Fail
What-If Analysis protects high-risk work only when each question tests degraded conditions, safeguards, ownership, and proof before exposure starts.
Workplace safety, safety culture, leadership and risk management, from an international perspective.
Por Andreza Araujo Global Safety Culture Specialist
Category
What-If Analysis protects high-risk work only when each question tests degraded conditions, safeguards, ownership, and proof before exposure starts.
Critical control verification protects serious-risk work only when it tests whether the barrier works under normal pressure, not whether the audit file is complete.
A safety risk register prevents little when it only lists hazards, but it becomes useful when every row proves control ownership and residual risk.
A pre-mortem safety review helps EHS managers expose weak controls, hidden assumptions, and decision gaps before high-risk work begins.
Residual risk acceptance should prove control strength, decision authority, expiry, and escalation before leaders allow exposure to continue.
Permit-to-work handover protects high-risk work only when the next shift receives live risk context, control status, and stop-work authority.
Management of Change prevents serious risk only when technical review, field verification, training, and startup authorization work as one system.
Prevention through Design turns risk management upstream by asking leaders to remove or engineer out exposure before the organization depends on behavior, permits, and PPE.
Layer of Protection Analysis helps EHS teams test whether critical controls truly reduce SIF exposure before leaders approve high-risk work.
HAZOP, FMEA and Bow-Tie solve different risk questions. The wrong choice creates analysis volume without improving critical-control decisions.