Mikael Krogerus & Roman Tschäppeler

Swiss cheese can help prevent calamities

Swiss cheese can help prevent calamities. In healthcare and air transport, where errors can be fatal, analysts use a risk analysis model in which the holes in Emmentaler cheese represent errors. This Swiss Cheese model likens human systems to a stack of sliced cheese and strives to prevent the alignment of holes (errors) in consecutive slices.

The Swiss Cheese model is one of the analytical methods that journalist Mikael Krogerus and communications advisor Roman Tschäppeler included in their bestseller The Decision Book. Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking. In Switzerland, the home base of the two authors, this “Swiss Army Knife among Management Books” sold 50,000 copies within a couple of weeks. The book is now available in 26 countries in various languages.

Krogerus and Tschäppeler first met while studying at the KaosPilots School, which offers special training for creative entrepreneurs in the Danish town of Århus. Krogerus holds a Finnish passport, but grew up in Sweden and Germany. He worked as a copywriter for various agencies and as a writer for the TV program Chat the Planet in New York and for NZZ Folio, a supplement of the Neue Züricher Zeitung. He is currently a freelance journalist.

Tschäppeler is founder of the communication agency Guzo, which develops PR and awareness campaigns. He is also manager of the Swiss star chef Ivo Adam. He previously worked for the Swiss think tank BrainStore.

Inspired by the success of their first book. Krogerus and Tschäppeler also wrote The Change Book 50 Models to Explain How Things Happen and The Question Book. What Makes You Tick?