ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the somewhat surprising fact that there is confusion concerning what are called hazards. The confusion arises both because of imprecise definitions, and the fact that it is often rather arbitrary what is called hazards, causes and consequences. When risks on each project are analysed from scratch, the problems of ambiguity and arbitrariness is controllable, provided consistency is maintained. However, the problem becomes more acute for a reusable risk analysis framework, when each project must conform to the structure of a generic analysis for a system module, which is a primary goal of our work. Another aspect of ambiguity we address concerns the way that the concept of a hazard evolves through a project’s lifecycle. In the early stages hazards typically are abstract and generic, whereas in an operational system much more concrete and specific issues are tracked as hazards.
