Uncertainty refers to lack of knowledge about the value of a given variable or of the magnitude of the short term risk from the threats to your business that you have already identified.

The more uncertain the environment, the more difficult it is to predict the future states of the environment. For example, an airline may not be able to predict the number of tickets it can sell, nor the cost of jet fuel. An automobile manufacturer may not be able to predict its total sales accurately.

This question is a little easier to answer if threats to your business have been identified already, or have been experienced previously, or have been identified in analyses of your industry. For example, if a new competitor has joined your market, you may want to run an application of OrgCon on what you can obtain from public sources about this competitor to measure the uncertainty created by this new competitor. You may even be able to calculate the probability of specific events occurring from this threat.

Uncertainty requires that, at least in principle, a probability measure can be specified. Uncertainty is, in most cases, related to issues that the organization has experienced previously. Fluctuation in demand for the organization's goods and services is a good example.

• A high uncertainty environment is most difficult to predict
• A low uncertainty environment is known and predictable