Risk Knowledgebase and Metadata 

When we think of storing risk experience knowledge for our future use in the organisation and make it accessible is to build an automated repository that resides in a shareable database. The figure contains a conceptual entity-relationship  (ER) diagram for such a repository. This diagram represents the things about which we need to know information and shows how they are associated with each other.

While the information modelling community has precise definitions for numerous modelling techniques and their respective diagram conventions, the following definition can be taken out from the illustrations:  

Some of the definitions are: 

• A box represents an entity that is information about a person, place or concept about which information can be given. Example customer and Project entities. 
• The lines connecting entities, it represents the relationship between two entities. The numbers at each end of the relationships are two-way. Example Customer sponsoring zero or more projects, same way a project is sponsored by a customer.  

The diagram given below should be useful and analysed by business and technical professionals.  So risk knowledgebase can be defined as: 

• A customer sponsors zero, one or more projects. A project is always sponsored by a customer 
• A project always has one or more than one risks. A risk is always associated with a project. 
• A risk is classified by a probability. It can be assigned to multiple risks 
• A risk exhibits a severity. This can be exhibited by multiple risks 
• A risk is placed in a timeframe. The same timeframe can be placed on many risks 
• A risk is linked to a strategy. This strategy can be linked to many risks 
• A mitigation strategy includes zero or more contingency pans. This plan is included with a mitigation strategy.  

Risk knowledgebase database structure 

This structure is based on database management system such as Microsoft access. A construction of database repository is made in which risk knowledgebase is stored. Figure shows an example of such a database constructed with MS access 2000.  

• Risk Knowledgebase Tables: There are ten basic tables in the sample risk knowledgebase database shown in the figure. Each enterprise should examine the contents and determine the additional attributes (i.e. database columns) that are required. For example, the customer table contains only a unique identifier and the customer name, certainly more information is requires. The following describes the metadata for each table in the risk knowledge database structure.