In 2024, the PRIMO Europe board confirmed its portfolio. The portfolio was considered complete and promising for further development. The focus is that products and services should refocus more than ever on establishing public values and helping members become better equipped to be more effective in decision-making. It is the conviction that, based on experiences over the last few years with our roundtables, think tanks, and education, the perspective on risk has shifted towards true delivery, effectiveness, success, and performance.

Our members need models, tools, and techniques that provide genuine insight into matters, challenges, and issues related to public values and deliver effective solutions. The more general path of promoting frameworks or focusing on generic culture change is less favored. For effective navigation in times of high dynamics, a greater focus on systems thinking and resilience is needed. In view of the current positioning and development of risk management within the public domain, the conclusion is drawn that the needs of organisations working in or for the public domain have broadened considerably to include offering quality, safety, security, performance, precaution, continuity and reliability.

It was highly recommended to work from a clear, scientifically validated definition of public value and public risk. The landscape of the latter is perceived as highly polluted by umbrella organisations for risk and quality, global think tanks, non-governmental organizations, consulting firms, and, yes, universities. Everyone seems to like their own version of risk. PRIIMO retains the definition that formed the basis for its establishment in 2005. This was to help city managers, their teams, and governing councils be more effective in decision-making.

The emphasis in the strategy and delivery of products and services is on good public governance. Risk management becomes more of a component, but links are clearly made to scenario thinking, high reliability, stewardship, archery, systems thinking, and value development. The focus is on cross-cutting themes (sustainable development goals, circular economy, security, energy transition, climate change, and quality of life in the broadest sense.

The following PRIMO portfolio is presently available:

• Weblibrary is a basis for knowledge sharing and the educational material used in courses.
• Think tank ‘From Global to Local’, in cooperation with UDITE, for translating global trends and developments towards regional and local authorities and communities. It is held annually with a specific topic at the center. The think tank is multidisciplinary in composition and renewed every year.
• Diagnosis FORTE for concrete projects, plans, and programs. It measures the support on finance, object-orientation, responsible leadership, available tools, and environmental impact.
• Diagnosis Hexagon, along 6 parallel lines: actor, issue, object, governance, delivery, and environment. The present value and future risk are measured using their key determinants and blockades. The semantic differential is a guiding principle for insight and discovery.
• Kaleidoscope, training focused on giving insight into existing frameworks, methods, tools, and techniques, linked to the attendees’ own projects.
• Masterclass ‘Result in times of transition’. It highlights 6 main developments in the public domain to attendants own needs. Docents are positioned in the triangle expertise, science and public administration.
• Public Sector Report highlights the results of surveys on public themes in any given year.
• Public Risk Forum, a permanent online meeting and discussion platform.
• PRIMO Risk Management Award, awarded annually to the most deserving organization or person which had contributed to the development of this craftsmanship.
• Participation in the yearly Risk & Resilience Festival as a partner of Twente University

Supporting principles and starting points

Certified models, tools, and techniques are used to diagnose the position and phase of the public value at stake. For navigation, concrete advice and training, we make use of a the following combination:

• SWOT-analysis.
• Design-Thinking (Darden Institute, by Professor Liedtka),
• CINTONE Diagnosis (key players, interactions, system-levels, physiology-morphology-ecology, by Oldeman & Kruf),
• High Reliability Organisation Concept (by Weick and Sutcliffe),
• Premortem (by Klein).
• Precautionary principle.
• Scenario-planning.
• Colour matching (actor and issue).
• Circle of Character – Style – Craftsmanship – Knowledge),
• Principles zooming out to the wider context and zooming in again (holism, inspired by Alexander von Humboldt and Roelof Oldeman).
• Archery.

To map risks in the processes of analysis, decision-making, and delivery, we mainly use dialogue-inspired approaches and the herefor mentioned methods. We know all the frameworks related to quality (ISO palette, CAF, EFQM) and risk (ISO 31000, COSO ERM, Basel Framework, COBIT, Three Lines Model), but most of the time we consider them too generic to provide direct solutions and less applicable to establishing public values. Of course, where necessary, we link with them because they offer interesting constraints for the organisations involved.