‘Close call’ type incidents at work are all too regular.
Each time it happens, you gather the team, pull out the incident report forms, and someone says, “We should ICAM this.” You agree — but quietly wonder, “What else could we be doing to actually stop this from happening again?”
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
Many WHS professionals are highly skilled at investigating events after they occur. But when it comes to visualising risk — clearly seeing the threats, the controls, and what happens when those controls don’t perform as intended — there’s a powerful tool that often gets overlooked: Bow Tie Risk Analysis.
It’s not ICAM. But it works alongside ICAM to help you clearly articulate hazards and controls, and then review how those controls are designed and how they perform — both before and after events occur.
In this article, you’ll find a straightforward guide to what Bow Tie Risk Analysis is, when to use it, and how it supports more effective learning and change.
Imagine if you could look at a risk in your business and instantly see the underlying factors and all the ways you're trying to mitigate it. That’s the power of Bow Tie Risk Analysis.
Named for its distinctive shape, a Bow Tie Diagram puts a potential incident - the “Top Event” - in a central position. On the left side, you identify the threats that could lead to that event. On the right, you map out the consequences that could follow. Then, for each threat and consequence, you draw out the controls you’ve put in place. The result is a clear, visual summary of your risk landscape.
It’s simple, but powerful.
While ICAM is used to investigate incidents after they occur - looking into contributing factors - Bow Tie Risk Analysis is proactive. You can also use it after an incident, alongside ICAM, to test where controls failed, or assumptions didn’t hold. So rather than replacing ICAM, Bow Tie complements it by helping you plan better and mitigate future incidents.
In short: an ICAM investigation helps you understand the “why” after an incident and then examines how system conditions influence control performance. Bow Tie helps you see the “what if” before it happens - and how to mitigate it.
If you’re managing workplace safety, you’ve likely faced moments where risk feels abstract - hard to pin down, harder still to communicate. That’s where Bow Tie Analysis comes into its own.
A Bow Tie Diagram hits the sweet spot: simple enough to understand at-a-glance yet detailed enough to be genuinely useful. The bowtie is your foundation and risk assessment. Identify your hazards for a particular job or task and implement controls.
Here’s what it helps you do:
It’s not just a diagram. It’s a conversation tool. A decision-making tool. A risk reduction tool. And it helps convert risk into clear, shared understanding and practical actions across the team.
After an incident, the question is always the same: “How do we stop this from happening again?”.
You can run a thorough ICAM investigation. You can uncover all the contributing factors. But unless you visualise those risks and clearly see where your controls failed - or were never there to begin with - you risk repeating the same mistakes.
That’s where Bow Tie Diagrams shine.
Every event is shaped by contributing factors—underlying conditions that increase the likelihood or severity of failure. Bow Tie Analysis makes these visible by mapping how threats, controls and consequences interact, helping you see:
Bow Tie Analysis and ICAM are naturally aligned. Bow Ties are designed upfront to articulate how an organisation believes risk is being controlled, while ICAM examines how those controls actually perform in practice. When an event occurs, ICAM doesn’t recreate the Bowtie, it tests it: questioning the assumptions made, the quality of controls, and the conditions that influenced their effectiveness.
Training in Bowtie Analysis strengthens this process by improving how risks and controls are identified, described and positioned in the first place, leading to clearer analysis, more meaningful learning, and better-designed controls over time.
Say a worker slips and falls in a warehouse. ICAM tells you the contributing factors were a lack of floor maintenance, poor lighting, and no signage.
Using a Bow Tie Diagram:
Now your team has a visual plan - not just a written report. You’ve turned a reactive investigation into a proactive risk strategy.
Too often, risk assessments sit in a folder. Bow Tie Diagrams are different. They're designed to be used - in safety meetings, toolbox talks, contractor onboarding, and boardroom discussions. They help embed risk awareness into your daily operations.
And most importantly, they help you mitigate recurrence, not just explain what happened.
When it comes to risk and safety, you don’t want theory. You want tools that work and people who know how to help you use them.
That’s exactly what ICAM Australia delivers.
Our team helps businesses across the country use Bow Tie Diagrams to simplify complex risks, communicate them clearly, and make better decisions around safety.
More than incident response specialists, ICAM Australia helps you learn how to mitigate incidents from happening in the first place. With deep expertise in both ICAM investigations and Bow Tie Risk Analysis, we understand how to bring these two frameworks together to give you the full picture - before and after an incident.
If you’re serious about reducing risk, improving communication, and mitigating recurrence in your workplace, Bow Tie Risk Analysis is a game-changing tool.
And ICAM Australia is here to help you use it properly.
Want to learn how Bow Tie Analysis can transform your approach to workplace safety?
Get in touch with ICAM Australia today - for training, support, or expert guidance tailored to your business.