Earthquake risk management of civil infrastructure: integrating soft and hard risks - Seismic Risk Analysis and Management of Civil Infrastructure Systems - page 242

confl ict, we need to identify it and manage it. We must use traditional mea-
sures of the physical sciences, for example as state variables, as appropriate
but also incorporate 'soft' measures (Blockley and Godfrey, 2005) such as
voting or individual judgements. We can do this by capturing on a scale [0,
1] the degree of any evidence in favour as well as evidence against. We
colour the degree of evidence that a process is heading for success in green
as shown in Fig. 9.2. Evidence against is also assessed on a scale [0, 1] and
is coloured in red starting from 1 and working back to zero. The difference
in the middle is white and represents incompleteness - the extent to which
we do not know. The three colours together make the Italian fl ag.
An all-green fl ag means that there is complete evidence for and no evi-
dence against (no red). An all-red fl ag means that there is complete evi-
dence against and no evidence for (no green). An all-white fl ag means there
is no green evidence for and no red evidence against and so we really 'do
not know' or indeed have no view. Figure 9.3 shows a simple model of a
process with two sub-process holons which are both necessary for the
success of the top process. The players who own each process associate an
Italian fl ag with that process. The fl ag represents their view, based on evi-
dence, that the process will be successful. Clearly there is something wrong
in Fig. 9.3, since the fl ags are obviously inconsistent. This means that when
the process owners realise this inconsistency, they can discuss the reasons

Green White Red

9.2 An Italian fl ag.

Attributes identified
for each process
are:
Why (purpose)
How (method)
Who (players)
What (performance)
Where (context)
When (time)

Process A

Green White Red

Process B Process C

Green White Green Red

Red White

9.3 A simple map of three processes. Note: The Italian fl ag of
evidence for Process C indicates that it is very likely to fail.
Unfortunately the owner of Process A has an Italian Flag that indicates
that Process A is likely to be successful. If Process C is necessary for
Process A then the two process owners need to sort out the reasons
for their differing perceptions.