<< I agree that checklist design and use are critical. Accident reports
abound
with examples of either poor checklist construction or discipline resulting
in tragedy. But CRM, unlike the checklist, is not just for a specific
situation. CRM is an all-the-time set of behaviors--- a part of an overall
culture of aircrew attitude and performance. Whereas checklists play an
important, even critical, part in those behaviors, it is still only a part.
>>
BUT there's a danger in looking for the "ingredients" of incidents and
accidents. In an earlier message I admitted to being an interloper from
another world (human performance in nuclear power), where Jim Reason & I
looked at 21 abnormal events that involved a significant element of human
performance--roughly half where performance was astonishingly good and half
where it was astonishingly bad (I forget now which was 10 events and which
11, but you get the point, I hope). Even in the events where people did
really well, bad procedures were a factor in the scenario at least 50% of the
time--in other words the operators did brilliantly despite lousy procedures.
Poor procedures do not discriminate good and bad human performance; it only
looks that way if you only look at "bad" performance events.
--Like the poor, bad procedures are always with us. Our work suggests a
variety of reasons, one being that the "operating envelope" is broader than
the mind of the procedure writer imagines.
Well, just a passing comment from an outsider.
Any different in your business?