The default picture of risk is the heat map: a grid of likelihood against impact, every risk a coloured square. It is familiar, it is quick, and it quietly throws away most of what makes connected risk interesting.
What heat maps hide
Flatten risks onto a grid and three things disappear. The connections between them — gone. The uncertainty around each estimate — collapsed into a single cell. And in their place you get false precision: a tidy red-amber-green that looks far more certain than the judgement underneath it.
Showing the system
A network view keeps what the grid loses. It shows what connects to what, sizes each risk by how connected it is, and draws the directions stress would travel. A picture you have always read top to bottom becomes one you read across — and the structure does the explaining.
The test is the boardroom
Good risk visualisation is not about more colour or more dials. The test is whether someone who does not live in the model can look at it and understand where the system is fragile. A clear picture of the network lands in seconds, with no key to decode.