At 12:50 PM 5/26/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Ephimia,
>
>For line personnel and managers to understand the focus of a program, I
>believe that the definition needs to be one declarative sentence written in
>language that non-scientists really use.
>
>CRM Definition:
>The "management skills" used to direct, control and coordinate all availabe
>resources for safe and effective operations.
>
>CRM Program:
>A program that builds and delivers management skill training.
>
>Everyone uses a different categorization for the "management skills". It
>really doesn't matter how everyone slices the pie because the "management
>skill" contents are generally the same. The U.S. Air Force uses 8
>different categories, Delta uses 6, Northwest uses 4, UT-Austin uses a
>dozen or more.
>
>The 6 management skills that Delta uses are:
>
>Communication
>Coordination
>Planning
>Workload Management
>Decision Making
>Situation Awareness Management
>
>Through classroom awareness training, simulator training, simulator
>assessments, and line assessment, we build and reinforce the desired
>management skills.
>
>You will find many people who try to make CRM more than it really is. They
>are usually the folks who cannot clearly define where CRM stops and Human
>Factors begins. For many years, CRM suffered from ill-defined boundaries
>and a cure-all orientation. There is a huge difference between a CRM
>program and a human factors program, yet many within the CRM community
>referred to them as one in the same. Pilots still refer to them as one in
>the same. In January 1997, I did a study at Delta to assess perceptions of
>human factors and CRM and the pilots generally perceived them to both be
>"training to get along better".
>
>Human factors is the study of what contributes or detracts from human
>performance. Human factors programs identify and respond to the conditions
>that lead to error. A CRM program is the training component of a larger
>Human Factors or Error Management program.
>
>The next generation of CRM programs is not really CRM, it's error
>management that recognizes that CRM is just one tool in a larger toolbox
>for reducing error. To confuse error management and CRM is just as
>dangerous as confusing CRM and human factors. Throughout the 1980's, as
>developers and managers who build programs to reduce error recognized the
>inherent limitations of trying to reduce crew error with only CRM training,
>they begun looking to other methods and industry best practices. The
>industry was developing these error management programs long before the
>"visionaries" were writing papers about the next generation CRM program
>based on "error management". It's been kind of humorous watching all the
>parade marshals appear after the parade has already started. The U.S.
>Army, for example, has had a mature Operational Risk Management (ORM)
>program in place since the early 90's. The Army dramatically reduced and
>sustained a low mishap rate the first year they put the program in place.
>
>
>The military has lagged the airlines in CRM development, but the military
>has far exceeded the airlines in risk and error management programs. The
>seminal work on error management upon which most of this recent refocusing
>has occured is from Professor Jim Reason. There are two Navy researchers
>named Shappell and Wiegmann who are doing cutting edge work on reporting
>and classification systems for error management using Reasons model as the
>framework. I would highly recommend reading their work if you are
>interested where the next generation of error management is heading and
>where CRM training programs will fit in this larger effort to reduce error.
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Vince Mancuso, Ph.D.
>
>
>