Another interesting paper co-authored by the late Richard Cook. This paper discusses the usefulness of error. It’s a larger post with a lot of quotes – I just can’t do a better or more succinct job of restating what they’ve already written. Providing background, they argue that while some see “error” as a dead-end, others… Continue reading “Those found responsible have been sacked”: some observations on the usefulness of error
Tag: safety science
Audits, excessive compliance focus and risk blindness
Still genuinely surprised that our last paper on audit failures has generated, relatively speaking, so much interest: now the second-most accessed paper in the Process Safety Progress journal. [* It shows as number 1 but that’s a glitch in the matrix. There’s a study on ‘red squirrels tests’ that has HEAPS more views.] No doubt… Continue reading Audits, excessive compliance focus and risk blindness
The Shift from System to Individual in Safety Approaches
I found these extracts interesting from Foundations of Safety Science – summarising some key developments and interpretations from over a century of safety-scientific approaches. They observe that despite a myriad of approaches, and developments, “almost every approach seems to end up reverting, one way or another, to the people who work in that system”. As… Continue reading The Shift from System to Individual in Safety Approaches