Here’s a 30 min YT presso from Sid Dekker on complex system failures and drift. Some extracts: · “this fascination with counting and tabulating little negative events, as if they are predictive of a big bad event over the horizon, is an illusion” · “We should be doing something quite different if we want to understand how your complex system… Continue reading The Pursuit of Success & Averting Drift into Failure – YT vid from Sidney Dekker
Tag: sociotechnical systems
Complex systems and drifting into failure – further extracts from Dekker 2013
More extracts from Dekker’s 2013 paper ‘Drifting into failure’. These parts focus on some properties of complex systems (image 1), and how systems drift to failure (image 2). Extracts:· “Open systems mean that it can be quite difficult to define the border of a system. What belongs to the system, and what doesn’t? This is known… Continue reading Complex systems and drifting into failure – further extracts from Dekker 2013
Drifting into failure: Complexity theory and the management of risk
2013 paper from Dekker discussing drift into failure. Nothing new if you’ve read his 2011 book. Extracts: · “organizations do not just fail because of component breakage or linear propagations of breakdowns. Instead, failure breeds opportunistically, non-randomly, among the very structures designed to protect an organization from disaster” · “A common pattern seems to be a drift… Continue reading Drifting into failure: Complexity theory and the management of risk
How complex systems (don’t) fail: YT video from late Richard Cook
A banger YT presentation from the late, great Richard Cook. He discusses ‘how complex systems fail’. Video link below. Some extracts: · “The surprise is not that there are so many accidents … The surprise is that there are so few” · “The normal world is not well-behaved … Even so, a lot of operational settings achieve… Continue reading How complex systems (don’t) fail: YT video from late Richard Cook
Preventing serious injuries & fatalities: time for a sociotechnical model for an operational risk management system
Here’s a 2008 article from Fred Manuele which was included in my SIF compendium (link to compendium & article below). Fred explores a sociotechnical approach to preventing SIFs. The fatality rate in the US from 1971 to 2005 decreased from 17 to 4, but remained stable from 06 to 2011 at ~3.5; hence SIF prevention… Continue reading Preventing serious injuries & fatalities: time for a sociotechnical model for an operational risk management system
An ode to Drs Richard Cook, Jens Rasmussen & Bob Wears: A mini-compendium of their legacies
This is long overdue – but I wanted to cover some of the work from these giants who have played a significant part in modern safety thinking. Focus is on articles I’ve written about or used extracts from, or could find a full-text link for, and higher-cited articles. It’s not systematic – and unfortunately a… Continue reading An ode to Drs Richard Cook, Jens Rasmussen & Bob Wears: A mini-compendium of their legacies
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