Operational Risk Management (ORM)

"Safety and operations must intertwine in such a manner that risk
management and safety are a part of the planning and execution of
all missions, exercises, and daily evolution. Risk awareness must
be increased through aggressive training. Safety must become an
enduring principle for the Marine Corps."

James L. Jones
General, U.S. Marine Corps
Commandant of the Marine Corps

The most valuable resource the Marine Corps has is the resource of its member: Those sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wifes, and mothers and fathers. "The Marine Corps uses its resources to generate overwhelming combat power to fight and win quickly, decisively, and with minimal losses. The Marine Corps’ inherent responsibility to the
nation is to protect and preserve its resources—a responsibility that resides at all levels. Risk management is an effective process for preserving resources. It is not an event. It is both an art and a science. Marines use it to identify tactical and accident risks, which they reduce by avoiding, controlling, or eliminating hazards" (ORM 1-0, 2002, p.iii).

Marines must be proficient in applying risk management because it is critical to conserving
combat power and resources. Commanders must firmly ground current and future leaders in the critical skills of the five-step risk management process. This process includes:

• Step 1. Identify hazards
• Step 2. Assess hazards to determine risk
• Step 3. Develop controls and make risk decisions
• Step 4. Implement controls
• Step 5. Supervise and evaluate

Do you think risk decisions should be based of mechanical habit rather than awareness?

Essentially, we want to be able to assess any given situation, whether real or not, and be able to identify the hazards, assess them to determine exactly what risks we are talking about, develop controls to limit or get rid of the risk altogether, implement those controls and supervise and evaluate the event. In training, everything a Marine does involves risk. It depends on us, as their leader, how to get them through without unnecessary harm.

When we talk about risk, we look at how likely or how probable it is to occur. The chart below shows the degree of probability from Likely (A) to Unlikely (D). These characters are important to understand for when we actually do a ORM worksheet.


The other thing we need to look at is, if this event or occurance does cause risk, what degree is the severity? The chart below discusses what category a hazard will be in and what characteristics it must have.

This process is going to require critical thinking and estimation of risk. Once we understand the probability and category we are looking at, we must assign this risk a number. What we do is look at the letter we gave for probability and category we gave for degree of severity and where those meet in each row and column is known as the Risk Assessment Code or RAC.


Once we achieve this number, we then apply it to the chart below. One would be a Critical risk and 5 would be negligible.

This is all part of step 1 and 2 of the ORM process. Now we shall discuss step 3. Step 3 involves developing controls. What can we put in place that will help to minimize risk and possibly lower it to a number five on the scale? Some of the different types of controls include physical, educational, and avoidance. We can reduce the risk of heat casualties by ensuring water is always on hand. This would be what type of control? Exactly, a physical one. We could control this as well by using educational controls. Can anyone think of an example? Our main goal would be to select a course of action that would assist us in bypassing that identified risk, but with all training, and of course, in combat, risk is something that will be unavoidable so we must demonstrate ways to minimize risk as much as possible.

Once we identify a control for each risk or several, we identify where, when, and how this control will be implemented. Next we assess a residual risk assessment code. When we implement that control, where will the level of risk fall.

The next step is implementing the control and lastly, we would supervise and evaluate the use of controls and risks we encountered throughout the training evolution. As we become better at assessing the risks involved, this process becomes very fast and in combat, time is of the essence.

Let's apply this to training we currently conduct here during your stay at the academy. We are taking a platoon of 15 Marines out for physical training. What types of risks would identify?

We may include:
Heat casualty
Sprain limbs or pulled muscles
Vehicular travel

What probability would we place on heat casualty? I would suggest (in my experience) that it will probably occur (B). What severity would we place on being a heat casualty? We may say that it could cause death, however, let's say that it falls into Category II. With these two things, we can identify the RAC. Take a look at the chart and identify what RAC should be assessed to our heat casualty risk. The risk assessment you should have all reached was two. Now let's talk about what we could do to prevent a heat casualty. We could educate students on drinking water throughout the day and night and not just before the physical exertion. We could provide water at each checkpoint to ensure that water is available throughout the physical training session. We could avoid physical exertion but that would not help our combat effectiveness so ensure we are all thinking in realistic terms. Next, we would want to find out our residual RAC once these controls are implemented. I would suggest the risk would be unlikely to occur with these controls but if it did occur, that the category would be III. Take a look at the chart to find the RAC that we would assess to this risk and control. The residual assessment would be five (negligible). We have reduced this risk. Now the only thing left to do is carry out the plan, supervise, and assess our decision on the results. Great job!

Now let's see if you can make the correct assessment for our other two risks we have identified.

• Sprained limbs or pulled muscles
• Vehicular travel

Bring your responses to class on a sheet of paper. Ensure that you have your name and platoon number on top along with everything clearly labeled. Good luck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI4WH8bBpPk&feature=related

Remember that risk management is on all of our resumes! We must truly understand the risks that are out there for our Marines in order to best implement the controls to keep them safe. We will be more effective and efficient and this is, essentially, how we win wars.