Episode #52
52. How Engineers Can Communicate Uncertainty Without Sounding Uncertain
“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it.” — William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, was one of the most influential physicists and engineers of the 19th century Engineers routinely work with probabilities, assumptions, incomplete data, forecasts, simulations, and technical risk. The challenge is to acknowledge what is unknown while remaining clear about what should be done. Research on risk communication consistently supports communicating uncertainty rather than hiding it—but tying that uncertainty directly to its significance for the decision. In this podcast, you will discover three ways you can communicate uncertainty without sounding uncertain. References National Research Council. Improving Risk Communication. National Academies Press, 1989. The report recommends explicitly disclosing meaningful uncertainties, data gaps, confidence levels, and disagreements while avoiding both minimizing and exaggerating uncertainty. Institute of Medicine. Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty. National Academies Press, 2013. Chapter 6 examines how uncertainty should be communicated in decision-making, including confidence, risk estimates, audience characteristics, and the effect uncertainty has on decisions. Spiegelhalter, David. “Risk and Uncertainty Communication.” Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application , Vol. 4, 2017, pp. 31–60. Reviews methods for communicating numerical risk, probabilities, verbal expressions, graphics, and deeper forms of uncertainty. Sudret, Bruno; Podofillini, Luca; and Zio, Enrico. “Treatment of Uncertainty in Risk and Reliability Modeling and Decision-Making.” ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems , Vol. 5, No. 3, 2019. Emphasizes that uncertainty modeling, decision-making under uncertainty, and communication of uncertainty should be integral to engineering risk management. NASA. NASA Risk-Informed Decision Making Handbook , NASA/SP-2010-576, 2010. Provides a structured framework for evaluating alternatives and making engineering and program decisions when significant uncertainty exists. © 2026 DiBartolomeo Consulting International (DCI), LLC. All Rights Reserved. May not be used without permission.
