On the 7th and 8th of May, the Air Force Reserves hosted a CRM conference
at Westover AFB, Mass. Capt. Vic Bortka and Charlie Russell did an
outstanding job of both hosting the conference and making the proceedings
available. In fact, I think they hold the new world record for getting the
proceedings of a conference out (2 weeks). They have been available at:
www.afres.af.mil/hq/do/dot/crm/default.htm
All the slide presentations are available for download or review. Of
particular interest is the list of priorities that was derived from a
survey that the conference attendees completed. The attendees were asked
to prioritize the factors that shape aircrew behavior to avoid error.
Assuming that we engage in CRM to improve effectiveness and reduce error,
it is important to identify the factors that are most important and
allocate our program development resources accordingly. The number 1
factor was "the individual skill in recognizing dangerous conditions".
Most of the attitude and culture factors were ranked at near the bottom and
most of the skill factors were ranked near the top.
This is an intriguing finding because I have seen very few CRM training
objectives that focus on building skill in recognizing operationally
specific dangerous conditions. Its one thing to know a condition is
dangerous, it is quite another to have the skill to actually perceive the
cues in the whir of the operational environment. I have seen a few CRM
training objectives that focus on building "awareness" of dangerous
conditions in a classroom setting. I have seen very few simulator
objectives that have "identify and respond to condition xxxx" as one of the
skill objectives. If we are all looking for a place to leverage our
assets, I think these AFRES findings suggest that we should focus our
efforts on systematically identifying the families or categories of
dangerous conditions that lead to error within a specific operational
setting and craft skill-based training to build defenses against these
operationally specific dangerous conditions.
Best Regards,
Vince Mancuso