My 5 Pillars
This post is a bit different. I’m experimenting.
Rather than just writing my thoughts out in a linear, polished way, I’m trying to speak them out loud to practice how I articulate ideas, think them through verbally, and get better at expressing concepts that are sometimes hard to capture on paper.
This is all part of a new series I’m building around the Five Pillars of my consulting platform, J.S. Frost Consulting:
- Strategic Mine Thinking
- Mining Innovation & Systems Thinking
- Policy & Sustainability Leadership
- Academic Rigor & Real-World Application
- Human-Centered Technical Leadership
Today, I’m talking about the second bullet under Strategic Mine Thinking, and it’s this idea:
Uncertainty isn’t the enemy.
Understanding Our Fear of Uncertainty
Whenever I hear people in boardrooms or operational meetings say, “We need to eliminate uncertainty,” I pause. It’s such a common phrase, but what does it really mean?
The first question I always ask myself is:
Does this uncertainty have a material impact on the decision I need to make?
Let’s step away from mining for a second and use a relatable analogy: traffic lights.
When you’re approaching a green light, there’s always some uncertainty — When is it going to turn yellow? But here’s the thing: if your decision is to maintain your current speed, that uncertainty doesn’t really affect you. You’re just going to keep driving and react if something changes. For most people, this is how they move through their day.
But if you’ve set a rule for yourself, such as, “If it turns yellow before this point, I’ll brake; if it turns after, I’ll accelerate” then you’re using uncertainty as a decision input. It becomes something you plan around, not something you try to erase.
So uncertainty, in that case, isn’t a threat. Instead, it’s just another variable to understand.
The Certainty-Control Myth
Here’s the real problem: most people think certainty equals control, and that’s a myth.
In reality, the moment you write a static plan, you’ve already lost “control.” There will be variance the very next day — guaranteed. Certainty isn’t control. What you actually need to know is:
- What do I have control over?
- What don’t I have control over?
- What’s uncertain, and when does that uncertainty matter?
We tend to blur these distinctions. And we get tripped up because we assume a deterministic model as a fixed output gives us something “concrete” to work with. But in mining, we know that even small variables can introduce big swings.
When Uncertainty Becomes a Strategic Tool
Let’s talk practical mining examples:
Variability in rock hardness leads to different penetration rates. That impacts blasting, which impacts shovel productivity, which changes floor conditions and then affects truck speed.
Each of those variables can swing — bench to bench. And yet most operations plan to an average. That’s not wrong; it’s just incomplete.
What probabilistic models do is put range and probability around the outcome.
If you model uncertainty in something like crusher throughput, you can run 1,000 simulations with ranges for hardness, oversize, fragmentation, loading efficiency, etc. Suddenly, you’ve got a distribution instead of just a single number.
That’s how you stop guessing and start preparing.
Back to the traffic light: this is where you decide in advance: “If this happens, I do this.” Now you’ve planned with intention.
Why Deterministic Planning Still Rules
So if uncertainty is so valuable, why do deterministic plans still dominate?
Because deterministic plans:
- Give us a number to anchor to
- Provide a “path” we can follow
- Are easier to explain and easier to measure variance against
That’s why people ask things like, “Is this a P80 plan?” But the reality is that’s a gut feel. We aren’t doing the math to define it. We’re not building in the likelihood of achieving recovery, production, or throughput targets.
For instance, if we say our recovery is 85%, what’s the actual probability we hit that number?
If 85% is only achieved in 9 out of 100 simulations, that’s a P9 plan. And yet, we present it like it’s a lock.
We don’t say:
- What the downside risk is (e.g., 60% recovery = -25%)
- What the upside is (we can’t go above 100%)
- Or how many times we hit the number
It’s not that deterministic models are wrong but they are incomplete without context.
What We Handle Well (and What We Don’t)
In mining, we do handle some types of uncertainty very well.
Take grade control:
- We drill, sample, use 3rd-party validation
- We’ve built systems like NI 43-101, SK 1300, and JORC around it
- We’ve defined industry tolerances: ±5% = measured, ±15% = indicated
This is a mature system. We’ve accepted some variance and planned around it.
But take something like climate and suddenly we’re pretending uncertainty doesn’t exist.
We plan for 14 rainy days because it’s the average, but in reality, it could be 6 or 30.
We act surprised when we lose days to snow or rainfall even though we know the data is noisy.
Same for geotech, material weathering, and other dynamic systems.
We treat many inherently variable systems as deterministic — because it’s easier. But easier doesn’t mean better.
Risk and Uncertainty Are Not the Same Thing
This is where I think a lot of people — even experienced planners — get tripped up.
Risk and uncertainty are not the same thing.
Let me explain how I think about it:
- Uncertainty is about what you don’t know. It’s the range of possible outcomes; the fog.
- Risk is what happens when that uncertainty is paired with potential impact. It’s what might go wrong and matter.
Uncertainty is ambient. It’s everywhere. It exists whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
But not all uncertainty becomes risk.
Take ore hardness. There’s always variation and that’s uncertainty.
But does that uncertainty become a risk to your production plan? That depends:
- How sensitive is your throughput to hardness?
- How much buffer have you built in?
- Are you entering a known transition zone or just mining a typical bench?
If the variation could meaningfully derail your recovery, productivity, or costs then you’ve crossed into risk territory.
This distinction matters because when people say, “We need to eliminate uncertainty,” they usually mean, “We want zero risk.”
But chasing zero risk is a fool’s errand. It’s how you end up overbuilding, overplanning, and underdelivering.
Instead, we should be asking:
- Where does uncertainty actually translate into risk?
- When does it cross the line into something that deserves our time, attention, and resources?
Everything else? That’s just background noise.
Understand the uncertainty. Focus on the risk.
Making Risk Visible and Actionable
Not All Risks Are Created Equal
One of the biggest challenges in planning is knowing which uncertainties deserve our attention. We’re surrounded by noise such as hypothetical risks, low-impact scenarios, things that look scary on a dashboard but don’t move the needle.
To cut through the clutter, I like to use a simple filter:
- Is it actionable?
- Is it material?
- Is it time-sensitive?
Here’s a visual I use when discussing this in planning sessions and it helps frame the conversation in terms of Signal vs. Noise:
- Signal is where the real planning work lives. These are the uncertainties that affect outcomes, drive trade-offs, and shape strategy.
- Noise is distraction. It might sound dramatic in a meeting, but if it doesn’t impact performance, cost, or safety, it’s just clutter.
- The middle zone? That’s where judgment, experience, and analysis come in.
How do we make risk more visible and actionable?
First, ask yourself:
- Is it actually a risk?
- Like the yellow light; if you’re already in the intersection, it’s no longer a decision point.
- If the likelihood is infinitesimally small (e.g., a meteor strike), it’s not worth your attention.
- Like the yellow light; if you’re already in the intersection, it’s no longer a decision point.
- When does the risk become real?
- If it won’t impact you for four years, then you should start checking on it in three.
- If it won’t impact you for four years, then you should start checking on it in three.
- How big is the impact?
- If it’s $100K in a $2B business, it’s probably noise.
- If it’s $100K in a $2B business, it’s probably noise.
Once you’ve filtered these, you can prioritize the top few uncertainties that matter. That’s what you resource around. That’s what you prepare for.
Every site I’ve worked with has a long list of risks in their risk register but usually, only 3 to 5 of those actually change the outcome. The rest are noise. This kind of visual can help teams get aligned around what’s worth resourcing and what’s just worth watching.
Final Thought: Use Uncertainty as a Lever
We don’t need to model every variable with a +/- 5% swing. We don’t need to simulate gold prices or pretend we have a crystal ball.
But we do need to:
- Understand the limitations of our plans
- Identify the high-impact uncertainties
- Decide when they matter
- Make better decisions because of them
Uncertainty isn’t the enemy. It’s a layer of strategic thinking that, if handled properly, makes your decisions sharper.
Ready to Think Bigger?
This week, pick one area of your operation: recovery, fleet productivity, tailings, weather impacts and ask:
- What’s the average plan?
- What’s the upside/downside range?
- When does it stop being noise and start being risk?
Want More Strategic Thinking?
👉 Stay tuned for the next entry in the Strategic Mine Thinking series:
“The Mine Plan Is NOT The Strategy”
Or explore another pillar from my 5-Pillar Platform:
- Mining Innovation & Systems Thinking
- Policy and Sustainability Leadership
- Academic Rigor & Real-World Application
- Human-Centered Technical Leadership
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Comment below: What’s one decision you’d make differently if you understood its uncertainty?
