Why learn from everyday work? (Steven Shorrock, 2020)

Summary

For a few reasons – especially regulatory requirements – the majority of effort when it comes to safety management concerns abnormal and unwanted outcomes, and the work and processes in the run up to these. We need to learn from incidents – for moral, regulatory and practical reasons. But incidents alone don’t tell us enough about the system as a whole. If we view incidents as the tip of the iceberg in terms of total hours of work or total outcomes, then what lies beneath? 

Steven Shorrock explores this in an article for HindSight.