Systems Thinking for Safety: Ten Principles A White Paper (August 2014)

Summary

To understand and improve the way that organisations work, we must think in systems. This means considering the interactions between the parts of the system (human, social, technical, information, political, economic and organisational) in light of system goals. There are concepts, theories and methods to help do this, but they are often not used in practice. We therefore continue to rely on outdated ways of thinking in our attempts to understand and influence how sociotechnical systems work. This White Paper distils some useful concepts as principles to encourage a ‘systems thinking’ approach to help make sense of – and improve – system performance. It is hoped that these will give new ways of thinking about systems, work and safety, and help to translate theory into practice