impactwaarden

Impactwaarden are scores to quantify the consequences of a risk event in risk management. They express how severely an identified threat could affect objectives such as financial performance, operations, safety, or reputation. When used together with the likelihood of the event, impactwaarden help determine overall risk levels and prioritize responses.

Scales and criteria for impactwaarden are typically defined in advance and can be qualitative (for example negligible, minor, moderate, major, catastrophic) or numeric (for example 1–5 or 1–10). Each level is accompanied by explicit indicators or thresholds, such as expected financial loss, downtime, number of injuries, or reputational damage. The criteria should be tailored to the context and stakeholders.

Determination and use: impactwaarden are derived from expert judgment, historical data, benchmarks, and regulatory or policy requirements. They are documented in a risk register or similar tool and used in risk assessment matrices to rank risks, allocate resources, and plan mitigations. They may be revised as new information becomes available or as objectives change.

Example: in a project, a potential outage causing more than eight hours of downtime might be assigned an impactwaarde of 4 on a 1–5 scale, guiding priority for preventive measures.

Limitations include subjectivity, inconsistency between teams, and the need for regular review. Effective use requires clear definitions, documentation, and alignment with the broader risk management framework.