When I’m helping companies evaluate risk, I’m often asked to “define” what certain risk levels (i.e. High/Medium/Low or Probable/Improbable) mean.  It’s often a challenge to define these levels mean since risk is by definition the exposure to uncertainty, a nebulous concept.  LifeHacker recently published an article summarizing a research project that has been trying to evaluate what people mean when the say that some thing is “highly probable” or “Doubtful.”  The research is still in the early stages, but I’m intrigued by the consistency of the results to far and I’m already thinking about ways I might incorporate these results into my risk assessment process.

What do you think about this research?  Have you been successful in defining risk levels at your organization?