Posts about stuff relating to airports
My Favourite Human Factors Factoids
Human factors is a rich field of research and application. It encompasses how our bodies work, our minds think, and how we interact with each other and interface with tools, equipment and technology. It is absolutely ridiculous to think one can reduce human factors to mere factoids.
But it’s day 19 of this blogathon, and I need to write something firmly within my wheelhouse.
HBO's Chernobyl is a Must for Safety Nerds and Newbies
After Game of Thrones ended, many people wondered how HBO would survive without its flagship show. A couple of entertainment podcasts I listen to started talking about the new series called Chernobyl. As a safety nerd I was curious but didn’t have any way of seeing it where I currently live. Luckily, last month I found myself in an Airbnb in Sweden with access to an HBO account and I talked my wife into watching it with me.
I was already somewhat familiar with the disaster through university and other studies and I relished rounding out my knowledge in such an engaging way. But what really got my safety-nerd-receptors tingling was the underlying narrative and analysis of complex safety concepts such as latent failures, culture and accident investigation philosophy. In the first scene, in the first 30 seconds, I was hooked.
image credit: (c) HBO
Airport Professional Culture
I love the concept of culture. Obviously, those in the safety game are familiar with the concepts of safety culture and just culture but I like to think about it more generally as a way of managing people and ensuring good performance. For me, the power of understanding culture stems from the idea that all individual behaviour is influenced by the culture that surrounds that individual.
Image credit: A dodgy photoshop job on a photo by Aylmer
No Man is an Island
I've been a bit out of the loop over the past couple of months as I try to get a handle on my new job and the (almost overwhelming) responsibility that goes along with it. But I can't ignore the action over at the Federal Senate's Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee's inquiry into Aviation Accident Investigations.
Image by https://fshoq.com
Regulation, The Final Frontier?
The week before last, I finished a 4-year stint with the aviation safety regulator. Even though I'm heading back to industry, I'm not going to stop writing this blog. I believe that the role of the national regulator is the next safety frontier (not the last ;)) and I like the idea of exploring new territory. As the industry continues to explore concepts like safety management, systems-based this, risk-based that and outcome-based whatchamacallit as well as safety culture, we are all going to come to the realisation that safety can be greatly affected (more than we ever imagined) by the approach and actions taken by a national regulator.
Under Thinking Just Culture and Accountability
I am definitely capable of over thinking, of tying myself up in knots and being lost in the detail. And other times, I probably haven't thought enough. Recently, I identified just culture as a concept I hadn't really thought about in-depth.
In my mind, I thought I knew what a just culture was. I knew it was more than a simple no-blame policy. I knew it involved establishing what is acceptable and not acceptable behaviour. But that had been the limit of my thinking.
Culture: Complicated
A slipperier concept than culture there is not and yet, we definitely love to talk about it. Now I'm not suggesting that all this talk stop. There is nothing wrong with trying out different approaches to cultural change and seeing what works. However, I'm a bit of an academic and I don't mind a little esoteric pondering now and then. The following discussion is a summary of some ideas I cogitated on a couple of years ago when completing a minor research project for my Masters.