Learning from normal work - really?
I have just read another article telling us to learn from normal work. The idea is that incidents only occur infrequent and so only give us limited opportunity to learn about work. However, successful outcomes are achieved most of the time despite a lot of variability and complexity being encountered. Learning how this is handled from normal work will give us great opportunities to improve.
This idea has been cropping up in my LinkedIn feed for years. There seems to be some logic in it and people have clearly bought in to the idea. But I have be struggling to understand what it really involves and I have noticed that there has been virtually no attempt, including in this latest article, to provide any practical examples. So I thought I should take some time yesterday to reflect on my own experiences and test it out.
I have just returned from a very successful visit to see my mum who lives about 300 miles from me. It was planned at the last minute due to some changes in my schedule. Whilst I was at her house I did a little bit of work (I am self-employed) and some DIY for her. Combined with the travel, there seemed to be plenty of normal activity to learn from.
I knew before I set off that there was a short Teams meeting taking place that I should attend; so I packed my laptop and headset. As a result I was able to take a full part in the meeting – it was a total success. So what can I learn from this normal work? I guess it proved that I can work whilst away from my home office as long as I have an internet connection. That is very true, but I already knew that. The success this week seems to suggest that I should always take my laptop everywhere, just in case. But that is not always practical, or sensible if I am going to ever have a ‘proper’ break from work. In fact, I would argue that this is not a useful conclusion. I have joined similar meetings on my mobile phone and 4G network in the past. It is not as good but often good enough. So how do I use this experience to improve my ability to handle similar situations in the future?
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Whilst at my mum’s she pointed out a handle on one of her internal doors that had failed. She had bought a replacement but did not have a suitable drill for the job. If I had known I may have packed my drill and could have fitted the new handle on the first day of my visit, which would have been very efficient. As it was I was able to borrow a drill from my sister who lives nearby, but we didn’t visit her until later in the day. The result was that relying on borrowed tools delayed the job by 24 hours. So what can I learn? Should I always pack a range of tools every time I visit my mum, just in case she has some DIY to be done? That would be more efficient. But equally I proved that I don’t need to pack tools because I can borrow them. If efficiency was a requirement, carrying my own tools would be the best solution, but I would have to carry a lot to cover every eventuality. Again, how can I improve based on this experience?
I completed the 300 mile journey home in 6 hours with two modest stops. This is probably the quickest possible, so good but not better than previous occassions. However, there was heavy rain over night, so disruption was a real possibility. There are a couple of places on the route where I have options and have to decide which to take. I have a satnav in my car which is very convenient to use but the maps are a little out of date and the traffic updates are poor. I tend to use Google maps on my phone, which from experience I know can be better but not infallible. In this case the impact of the weather and the changing traffic levels throughout the day were beyond even Google’s ability to predict the future with certainty but it clearly did a good job (or got lucky). I guess it could be argued that my decision to use Google rather than the car’s inbuilt satnav was based on previous experience of this normal activity. But I had learned from journeys that didn’t go to plan, so rather than learning from success I was learning from failure. The opposite of what we are being told about learning from normal work.
I am not dismissing the idea completely. In fact, I am more convinced than ever that it has always been part of formal and informal work planning, and it is not true in any way to say we only ever learn from failure. The critical task analysis I have been doing for 25+ years has always been focussed on understanding what success requires based on practical experience. Giving this idea a label is not necessarily a bad thing but people seem to be putting effort into following what is being described as a big new idea that there is a real danger of it becoming a distraction.
So please, can someone tell me what am I missing? Feel free to use my examples or present your own (even hypothetical).
Thank you for commenting and discussing the points I raised. My conclusion is that the requirements to create more focus on normal work depend on the industry. In oil, gas, chemical etc. we have a lot of local control on how work is done and our systems are set up to continually optimise work based on continual feedback of how well things are going. We can change procedures (written and unwritten) very easily at a local level to improve performance. In aviation and pharmaceutical I can see that the way things are done is very closely restrained so the focus is likely to be more on how to keep to the established rules and procedures. I think this explains my bemusement about the repeated messages from some that we need to learn from normal work because at the moment we are only interested in avoiding things going wrong. Equally, I am still frustrated that the messages are so rarely backed up with any useful examples. I have to say I have some concerns around the apparent interest in all this from the medical sector. I see far more similarities with oil, gas and chemical than I do with aviation and pharmaceutical. But it is not an industry I work in, but like everyone I have personal interests . Thanks again
System Safety Engineering and Management of Complex Systems; Risk Management Advisor...Complex System Risks
2 年What is normal?
Human Performance Lead Advisor at bp
2 年Hi Andy Brazier you’re right to point this out. I often see articles and marketing suggesting we should be learning from normal work. But where? In everything we do? That’s not practical….we neither have the resources nor the time to fix everything and if we did we’d probably be out of business. I believe part of the answer is in the proactive identification and management of critial tasks. Or the tasks which make up barriers to major accidents (or whatever outcome would be disastrous for your business). Even this tends to leave a lot - so narrowing it down to single point failures also helps and more importantly, starts to be become practical. I’ve done quite a bit of data crunching and these tasks make up a significant amount of what goes wrong. Then, once we have a focus, we can deploy all our good Human Factors tools such as SCTA, Task Improvment Process (think SCTA light), learning teams etc. we need to make this practical to implement otherwise we will forever be talking and not really doing.
Retired Professional Process Safety Engineer now Chair of Trustees Stoke Gabriel Boating Association
2 年I have seen discussion around a positive approach to safety. That is, what has to function correctly to ensure safe and reliable operation. This includes correct project / operation management as well as operator tasks and equipment. This enabled one BP operation to develop a Safety Case based on what they did to operate safely. The operators and maintenance staff were able to contribute and this helped their understanding and need for certain tasks. Really you are asking the question, what am I doing to ensure accidents don't happen but it also benefits production and reliability. Various graphical representations have been developed to demonstrate the logic and inter- reliance. It may be easier to understand the positive approach (what goes right) rather than using fault trees (what goes wrong) because most of the time we do experience a successful outcome, but we are careful to maximise our chances of success.