I'm putting this here because it came up in a meeting and I thought it was a useful distinction.
A common question in the early days of GDS (and still a common question in lots of settings) was 'but aren't politicians very risk averse? how do you get to do risky new things?'
Francis Maude always had a good answer to that. 'We're not risk averse, we're surprise averse'.
This is worth remembering.
It explains why being pro-agile and anti-big bang launches is potentially popular with politicians and other people in positions of power.