SafetyInsights.org

This paper from Anita Tucker & Amy Edmondson explored how problem-solving behaviours may focus too much on overcoming immediate obstacles that they inhibit broader organisational learning. That is, people are too good at adapting and workarounds to make broken or inefficient systems work, and by doing so, obscure system improvement. Providing context, they argue that:… Continue reading When problem solving prevents organizational learning

This tested decision making (DM) performance by teaching junior officers in a fast & frugal heuristic. A heuristic is “a strategy that arrives at a satisfactory solution with a modest amount of computation” (p3). Heuristics allow adequate strategies to be found particularly when time is limited. Providing background, they note: ·        While heuristics simplify and… Continue reading Training Fast and Frugal Heuristics in Military Decision Making

This open access article may interest my sleep & fatigue colleagues. They looked at how post-sleep experiences influence a person’s subjective evaluation of their sleep evaluation from the previous night. ABSTRACT How we form judgements of sleep quality is poorly understood. Emerging literature suggests that people infer their sleep quality based on multiple sources of… Continue reading Judgement of sleep quality of the previous night changes as the day unfolds: A prospective experience sampling study

This study explored the links of fatigue on hazard recognition skills in construction. 155 electrical power transmission and distribution line workers in the US were included in the sample. Psychomotor vigilance testing was utilised to represent fatigue impairment whereas construction scenarios were used for hazard identification. Providing background, it’s noted that: Results A moderate negative… Continue reading Impact of Worker Fatigue on Hazard Recognition Skills

I found this an interesting little study. They studied how people employ resilient behaviours to varying degrees of variability. Via use of a fire fighting simulator, 21 uni students [** note the limitation of the sample] responded to a range of building fire extinguishing scenarios that introduced degrees of variability (e.g. removing fire trucks from… Continue reading In What Conditions Do People Adopt “Resilient” Behavior for Safety?

Using three studies, this paper developed a measure of Pro-social rule breaking (PSRB) and explored its influence on workplace perceptions, counterproductive behaviours, and task and contextual performance ratings made by supervisors via survey. PSRB is when employees volitionally choose to depart from top-down rules in order to benefit others, e.g. the organisation or stakeholders; like… Continue reading Breaking rules for the right reasons? An investigation of pro-social rule breaking

When investigating adverse events, “has the pendulum swing too far” towards remote and abstract organisational factors and away from local conditions. Among helping to popularise organisational & system approaches to understanding safety and unsafety, James Reason also questioned the extent of chasing latent and upstream factors versus downstream worksite factors. [Note. I present this more… Continue reading Has the pendulum swung too far in investigations and safety?

This explored the proportion of accidents that have design as a primary causal factor in aviation, nuclear and rail. Namely, this study sought to confirm whether the claim that 60% of accident causes arise from design stages. Note that it’s not a systematic analysis, nor the latest data, but interesting nonetheless. For methodology, when the… Continue reading The contribution to design to accidents

One of several studies that explored the statistical validity of the safety triangle. Data was from >25,000 establishments over a 13-year period from the US Mine Safety and Health Administration seeking to understand whether or not the OSH incident and injuries that a mining establishment experienced influenced the probability of subsequent fatal accidents. Three research… Continue reading Examining Factors that Influence the Existence of Heinrich’s Safety Triangle Using Site-Specific H&S Data from More than 25,000 Establishments

A VERY interesting study. It explores the shift the US Forest Service took from seeing rules from a compliance/violation logic that people *must* obey & which apparently prescribe safe actions, to an operating philosophy where rules are instead adaptable. Here, rules are tools to expand options for actions where firefighters use judgement to selectively choose… Continue reading Shifting the safety rules paradigm – Introducing doctrine to US wildland firefighting operations