Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Walter Castelnovo
This rises two questions: (i) what risk management processes can be made more efficient and
effective, and how this can be done; (ii) what technologies and tools can be used to make these
processes more effective and efficient, both at the intra-organizational and at the inter-organizational
level.
The baseline risk assessment is as a typical intra-organizational process that, in the SUAP example,
must be performed by all the public agencies involved in the processing of a SCIA. Besides the
competences required for using the standard methodologies for risk assessment mentioned above, in
order to properly assess the potential risks involved in a SCIA, the specific competences related to
the particular object of that SCIA are required. Such technical competences are more likely to be
owned by people who belong to different units within the same organization. This rises the problem of
how these people can be efficiently and effectively involved in the risk management process.
The team review, that is the core of the TRM model, is intended to achieve multiple results, some of
which strictly related to the execution of the continuous processes: (i) allowing the partners to arrive at
a shared risk evaluation; (ii) allowing them to agree on the risk handling actions each partner must
implement and the timing for their execution; (iii) sharing the information concerning the monitoring of
the implementation of the risk handling actions; (iv) allowing them to agree on how redefining the risk
handling actions and their timing to treat the possible secondary risks detected during the execution of
the continuous processes.
Based on these observations, figure 3 summarizes the requirements (A1-A4 and B1-B4) that should
be satisfied by the tools that can be used in order to make both the Baseline Risk Assessment and
the Team Review process more efficient. In the next section I will show how all these requirements
can be satisfied by some well known social computing tools.
Figure 3: Functionalities needed to support inter-organizational risk management
3. Social computing tools for supporting inter-organizational risk
management: An overview
As pointed out in (Higuera et al. 1994), communication (both formal and informal) represents a
fundamental component for all the risk management processes the TRM model comprises. On the
one hand, through communication all the actors involved in the inter-organizational risk management
processes can build and reinforce a shared vision, create a sense of collective ownership and
responsibility, enhance inter-organizational trust, which can make the cooperation more effective and
easier to manage. On the other hand, at the operative level, communication enhances the interactions
among all the actors involved, both at the intra-organizational and at the inter-organizational level, and
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