”A very opinionative guy”

The failure of risk management: Why it’s broken and how to fix it by D. W. Hubbard is an interesting book. The book discusses risk management in many different areas from economics to engineering and argues successfully (I think) that if you are going to do any kind of risk analysis; do it well and quantitatively. Hubbard also in a good way discusses the challenges with probabilities.

When discussing the book with a famous Operations Research professor the professor described the book with the words “He [Hubbard] is a very opinionative guy”. My interpretation of that now after I read the book is that Hubbard manages to cram very much about risk management in to the book and if you make sure to at least consider all the areas discussed you are very well set of if you need to defend your work.

P.S. Hubbard also argues that it actually is easier than you think to do a more extensive risk analysis (but you have to have the right knowledge) and it is therefore worth the extra effort.