Better Work Diaries | Y24W20

Back for Round 2 and I've changed up the format slightly after some coaching from Andrew Barrett - thanks Baz - will tweak again next week. Here's this weeks' Field Notes - musings for what I've been up to, things you may be interested in, a week in the life of a safety, technology & work design consultant - and this week was birthday week! Monday was admin day, punched out a couple of proposals, wrote several scripts for a video series for a client - Tuesday I turned 41 and treated myself to the day off so it was a pretty packed week Wed - Fri; this is what I got up to.

Conservation Sector WHS Forum

Every quarter Phil McKeague National Director of WHSE from Greening Australia convenes a Conservation Sector WHS forum - including the likes of Bush Heritage Australia, Landcare, WWF etc. It's a great crew and they are all doing amazing work in a challenging industry sector. I was a guest speaker for the forum about 3 years ago and I was invited back to give an update on the state of #SafetyTech and to discuss ideas and strategies for integrating data, technology and innovation into the conservation sector. Thanks for the invite Phil and for such an engaged crew.

Service Blueprinting Project

Gareth Rydon is currently contracted into my team as a service design expert for my clients - we are actively progressing through a service blueprinting project. I'll try to explain.

Service design is a holistic approach to creating and improving services to enhance user experiences and deliver better value. Gareth and I believe that service design when applied to the services that health and safety teams design is a fabulous way to ensure safety teams are effective and value-adding. Service blueprinting is a powerful tool within the service design approach that helps visualise and analyse the (health and safety) service delivery process.

A service blueprint for health and safety professionals outlines the process of delivering key WHS services to key stakeholders - it could be the design of the critical risk management program, the health and safety training process, the permit to work system etc. Service blueprints generally contain the following components:

• Stakeholder Actions: Steps taken by stakeholders (e.g., employees, managers) to engage with health and safety processes.
• Frontstage (Visible) Interactions: Direct interactions between stakeholders and health and safety professionals, such as training sessions, in-person board reporting.
• Backstage (Invisible) Interactions: Activities that support frontstage interactions but are not visible to stakeholders, such as safety planning and risk assessments or the creation of the monthly safety report.
• Support Processes: Internal processes and activities that support the delivery of health and safety services, such as data analysis and procedure development.
• Physical Evidence: Tangible elements that stakeholders come into contact with, such as procedures, monthly WHS reports, and safety tools/equipment.

By mapping out these elements, a service blueprint helps health and safety professionals understand and improve their service delivery, ensuring a high quality and effective experience for stakeholders. This approach enhances the value of health and safety teams by identifying opportunities for improvement and ensuring consistency and quality in service provision.

We are about to engage in applying service blueprinting to the "safety in design" process with our client and this week we finalised prep - I absolutely LOVE this kind of work, making safety teams and the processes they design, to be HIGH VALUE and effective.

EHS Congress Client Video Filming

Thursday I was in the studio filming a spotlight video for one of my clients who are presenting a workshop at the EHS Congress in Berlin next week. We shot against the green screen which will be replaced with footage we took in Munich back in March. The video showcases their digital safety transformation journey and I'm eager to share it with you once I have permission from the client - it'll be ready Monday evening all things going well.

An evening with Greg Smith

Thursday evening I attended an evening with Greg Smith hosted at Lockton offices thanks to the team at RiskTalk . You can read my insights here:

I also got to meet Robert Allan from Lobos Advisory in person for the first time after having several conversations on the phone over the last couple of years.

Soter Analytics Tech Catch Up

Every week I make time to connect with SafetyTech vendors to learn about their solutions and/or share trends and insights; Wednesday night I connected with Matthew Hart and Dr. Mike Goetsch from Soter to chat about the strategy behind their SoterGenius solution. We also talked about front end UX for data capture, ubiquitous computing and the future of how we think AI agents are going to be adopted and integrated into health and safety processes. Matt is coming to Perth next week and they are hosting an event on the topic; if you're in Perth - register here:

Win-Some-Lose-Some

Running a consultancy you have to be in it to win it. I was unsuccessful this week regarding a proposal to facilitate a subcontractor safety forum on critical risk; it was all a bit too short notice... on the other hand I was successful with two other projects I've had proposals in for - an event facilitation on safety and automation in mining and a technology trial for another client. I've sent two new proposals off this week for some interesting projects and signed an NDA to kick start first steps with a client I'd love to work with... its actually really hard work doing the admin'y side of consulting - it's easier if what you do is cookie cutter work but that's not the work I do at this stage. Maybe I'll package up some repeatable options at some point... any ideas?

Lifebooster Proof of Value Project Preparation

I visited the client site where my team and I will be facilitating the first ever proof of value exercise in Australia of the @lifebooster Senz platform. Participants will be wearing 6 sensors on various parts of the body for MSD risk evaluation which we will also correlate with video - I'll also be doing some cognitive risk analysis. For any technology validation project I ALWAYS visit the client site without technology - to have a human-to-human interaction and discuss any key concerns, build rapport, demonstrate empathy... these visits are also important to understand task type, duration, key personnel identified to be interacting with the prep, consent etc. We'll be doing the data collection Friday next week now that we are all planned.

Digital Work Capture Project Closeout

Wednesday I shot a closeout video and after a super busy couple of days, last thing on Friday evening we managed to provide the deliverables for a really fun digital work capture project that my team and I have been working on for about 6 weeks.

It was centred around providing insights around mobile plant interaction during a complex, high risk work activity. Last month we filmed work activities across day and night shift and edited a series of videos for operational learning - we provided a full suite of digital assets and a report that included a charter for integrating HOP principles, critical risk management and digital work capture. I love these types of projects! I'll be sure to update how much impact this project delivered for the client in due course once we have permission to share...

Planning for June | Perth #SafetyTech Workshop

The team at Trainwest and I are collaborating to host a #SafetyTech workshop in Perth on the 13th June. We've done a couple of posts on LinkedIn but we need to spread the news a little wider - we are keeping it intimate; will be 10 - 15 people max. Ticket sales haven't exactly been at Taylor Swift levels; so let's just say we still have some seats left. Here's the details, if the shoe fits... oh and now the event is eligible for AIHS CPD points ;)

What I'm Reading

Monday night I finished Greg Smith's "Proving Safety" - I have a huge pile of books to choose from next; but I think I'll read Ethan Mollick's Co-Intelligence again before I move on to something new... I've been trying that this year; reading the same book twice before I move to the next read. The second read is usually more of a skim but I am finding it's a good way, for me at least, to let some of the concepts soak in. This will be my third read of Co-Intelligence!

That's it for this week... but before I go... what exactly are Field Notes?

“Field notes are a qualitative approach most often used in ethnography. Field notes are written observations recorded during or immediately following participant observations in the field and are considered critical to understanding phenomena encountered in the field.?

Field notes are commonly associated with scratch notes, diaries, and journals. They are one way of collecting data that can be combined with interviews and focus groups or stand on their own as a text for analysis. Field notes are a collection of documents from a researcher’s observed experience in a specific setting or environment.?

Documents such as written notes, reports, and materials from the environment, including pictures, videos, and pamphlets, can all be used to help the researcher become immersed in the environment under observation.” SAGE Research Methods

My version of field notes are a combination of above, sometimes sketches, sometimes little quotes or anecdotes, ideas that spark during plane rides or in the middle of the night... key insights from discussions with friends, from dedicated or accidental experimentation...Most of my personal field notes are recorded in actual Field Notes Notebooks from a company called Field Notes Brand - I find that writing notes in pen on paper makes it more likely for me to commit to memory. I literally have dozens of these notebooks filled with my insights... the photo below shows selection of some of the notebooks I've filled over the years... and the image used as the banner of Better Work Diaries.

and that was my week...

Yours in curiosity

'Cam