A worst-case scenario is a concept in risk management wherein the planner, in planning for potential disasters , considers the most severe possible outcome that can reasonably be projected to occur in a given situation. Conceiving of worst-case scenarios is a common form of strategic planning , specifically scenario planning , to prepare for and minimize contingencies that could result in accidents , quality problems, or other issues.
7-417: A worst-case scenario is a risk management planning tool. Worst-case scenario may also refer to: Worst-case scenario The worst-case scenario is "[o]ne of the most commonly used alternative scenarios". A risk manager may request "a conservative risk estimate representing a worst-case scenario" in order to determine the latitude they may exercise in planning steps to reduce risks. Generally,
14-463: A catastrophe that must be avoided even at great cost, but in most health risk assessments, a worst-case scenario is essentially a type of bounding estimate". In computer science , the best, worst, and average case of a given algorithm express what the resource usage is at least, at most and on average, respectively. For many individuals, a worst-case scenario is one that would result in their own death. A number of criticisms have been leveled against
21-409: A particular disaster. The worst-case scenario devised by a seismologist might be a particularly bad earthquake, and the worst-case scenario devised by a meteorologist might be a particularly bad hurricane, but it is unlikely that either of them will devise a scenario where a particularly bad storm occurs at the same time as a particularly bad earthquake. The definition of a worst-case scenario varies by
28-466: A worst-case scenario "is settled upon by agreeing that a given worst case is bad enough. However, it is important to recognize that no worst-case scenario is truly without potential nasty surprises". In other words, ‘[a] “worst-case scenario” is never the worst case’, both because situations may arise that no planner could reasonably foresee, and because a given worst-case scenario is likely to consider only contingencies expected to arise in connection with
35-409: The field to which it is being applied. For example, in environmental engineering ", "[a] worst-case scenario is defined as the release of the largest quantity of a regulated substance from a single vessel or process line failure that results in the greatest distance to an endpoint". In this field, "[a]s in other fields, the worst-case scenario is a useful device when low probability events may result in
42-472: The use of worst-case scenarios. In some cases, a conceivable worst-case scenario within a field may be so far beyond the capacity of participants to deal with that it is not worth the effort to develop or explore such a scenario; where this is possible, it is "important to evaluate whether the development of a worst-case scenario is reasonable and desirable". Entities that rely on such scenarios in planning may be led to plan too conservatively to take advantage of
49-404: The usual absence of such scenarios, and may waste resources preparing for highly unlikely contingencies. At the extreme, it has been argued that the use of worst-case scenarios in disaster preparedness and training causes people to become conditioned to set aside ethical concerns and to over-react to lesser disasters. Ben-Haim and Elishakoff , Elishakoff et al. and Hlavacek et al. developed
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