Many problems send a signal weeks before they arrive. A system gets a little slower, or a limit gets a little closer, and nobody is in charge of noticing. This Practice looks at what the work depends on and asks what will break if nothing changes. The risk is named while there’s still time to act calmly.

A tool that supports it

Hazard Identification is a behavior, and there are several ways to practice it. A simple one is the “What-If” review, a short version of the Structured What-If Technique used in safety work in industry and in hospitals.

The technique is a guided set of questions. A group takes one part of a system at a time and asks what could go wrong with it, using prompts that all start with “what if.” What if this fails? What if the volume doubles? Each answer that worries the group gets written down with its consequence.

For this Practice, one prompt does most of the work: “What if this continues as it is?” It turns a slow trend into a date, and a date is something a team can plan around.

When to use it

Use it when you plan the next quarter, or when you notice a number moving in one direction for weeks. The signal is a thought like “that’s getting full” or “that’s slower than it used to be.”

It suits risks you can measure, in the systems and suppliers your work depends on. One named risk with a date is worth more than a long list of worries.

How to use it

  1. List what your work depends on, like a system or a supplier.
  2. For each one, ask: “What if this continues as it is for three months?” Then ask: “What if it stops for a day?”
  3. Pick the answer that worries you and put numbers on it. How much is left, and how fast is it going?
  4. Work out the date when it becomes a problem.
  5. Bring it to the team as an “if, then” sentence, with one first step. Raising a problem nobody can see yet is the hard part.

Example

A physical therapy clinic keeps its patient files in an online storage plan. The office manager is the one who uploads the scans.

In December, she runs the questions on the systems the front desk uses. What if the storage continues as it is? The plan holds 100 GB. The clinic is using 88 GB and adds about 4 GB a month, since every new patient brings scans. That leaves 12 GB, which is three months.

The usual way Nobody mentions the storage until an upload fails on a busy morning.
The Practice At the weekly team meeting: “If we keep adding files at this pace, our storage is full in March, and uploads will stop. The next plan costs $20 more a month. I’d also like to archive the files of patients who left more than five years ago. Can I do both in January?”

The owner approves both. In March, the clinic is using 61 GB of a 200 GB plan.

Phrases you can use

  • “If nothing changes, when does this become a problem?”
  • “How much room do we have left, and how fast are we using it?”
  • “This isn’t a problem today. By my numbers it will be one on that date.”
  • “What does our work depend on that nobody is watching?”
  • “Here’s a first step we can take while it’s still cheap.”
  • For a leader, when someone does it: “You saw that coming months ahead. What made you look there?”

How to know it worked

The team acts before anything breaks, and the date you named passes without an incident. The cost of the fix is small next to what the failure would have cost. With time, other people start bringing risks with a number and a date attached.

In a Skill Deck Track on Problem Solving, a person can choose this Practice, and the meetings they already have show when they use it.

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