ISO 45001 Clause 6.1 Planning: The CHART Framework

The CHART Framework is a planning model for ISO 45001 Clause 6.1, Actions to address risks and opportunities. Clause 6.1 asks an organisation to turn what it knows about its situation into actions that change what happens on site. It sets out what must be determined but says little about the order, and that omission is where most planning goes wrong. CHART supplies the order: Context, Hazards, Assess, Requirements, Translate. Each step produces something the next one needs, so a gap becomes visible as a gap rather than surfacing later as an action nobody can explain.

Definition and Core Purpose

The CHART Framework treats planning as a course to be plotted rather than a document to be produced. It shifts the question from "have we assessed our risks?" to "at which step did this action lose its connection to the hazard it was meant to control?"

CHART works through five steps, each with its own output:

• Context – read the situation forward, so planning answers what the operation is about to face rather than what it faced last year
• Hazards – surface what is present, including the hazards long familiarity has stopped registering as hazards
• Assess – establish what the risks and opportunities amount to, in terms that support a decision
• Requirements – establish what binds, so the minimum an action must clear and the stretch goals beyond compliance are known before it is chosen
• Translate – convert all of it into action that sits inside the work rather than beside it

The value is in the order, and the order is the clause's own. Context answers 6.1.1, Hazards answers 6.1.2.1, Assess covers 6.1.2.2 and 6.1.2.3 together, Requirements answers 6.1.3, and Translate answers 6.1.4. Planning that begins at Hazards inherits an unexamined picture of the operation. Planning that stops before Translate produces a determination that never becomes a control.

How CHART Maps to Clause 6.1

Each letter corresponds to a specific part of the clause, in the order the clause sets them out. The mapping is what makes the framework auditable rather than merely memorable.

How CHART Relates to PDCA

CHART sits inside the Plan phase of PDCA and expands it. PDCA treats planning as a single stage; CHART breaks that stage into five, on the basis that most planning failures are failures of sequence rather than of effort. The steps then push outward, since Translate reaches into Do and its evaluation criteria depend on Check.

Inside the Extended Edition

The complete CHART Framework, together with a full worked example, is available free to all subscribers. Eight further sections sit in the extended edition:

• Context: Reading the situation before planning starts, with the signs it is being done well
• Hazards: Seeing what is actually there, including the hazards routine has absorbed
• Assess: Establishing what it all amounts to, risk and opportunity in one movement
• Requirements: Establishing what binds, the minimum requirements and the stretch goals adopted beyond compliance
• Translate: Turning determination into action that sits inside the work
• Where CHART breaks: Five failure signatures, each with the counter built into the process
• Origins and use cases: Where the framework earns its keep, and how it pairs with the Six Arts of the Strategist
• The CHART Framework in Practice: A full worked example, one contract change taken from Context to Translate, then tested with the LDP overlay

Subscribers gain access to the complete documents, while higher-tier members can download them for use in their own training programmes.