Structured What-If Technique
Updated 2026-08-09
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The Structured What-If Technique is a hazard identification method that relies on prepared guide questions rather than free-form discussion. A cross-functional team walks through a system while a facilitator poses structured what-if prompts covering people, equipment, materials, methods, and environment. Each prompt is examined for possible deviations, their consequences, and the adequacy of existing controls, with gaps recorded and assigned. Because human intuition under-samples low-probability, high-consequence events, the fixed prompt set compensates for that blind spot and makes control sufficiency explicit.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Use guide prompts: run a prepared what-if question list instead of free talk. - Use control check: ask whether the existing safeguards would actually hold up under stress. - Use gap register: log every weak control and assign each one a named owner.
Anchor fast decisions
Structured imagination works because human risk intuition under-samples rare but severe events. A fixed set of guide questions, such as what if this component fails, systematically enumerates deviations and hazards, fills the blind spots of spontaneous thinking, and forces the team to make the adequacy of existing controls explicit.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- en.wikipedia.orghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_what-if_techniqueverified
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