“Why Are We Having More Incidents?” Causal Loops in Reactions to Unwanted Events

One way to understand the links between unwanted events, conditions and interventions is via causal…

“Why Aren’t They Reporting Incidents?” Influences on Reporting Behaviour

Reporting behaviour associated with safety-related accidents, incidents, and hazards is a concern for many managers,…

A Surgeon’s Take on Human and Organisational Factors: A Conversation with Manoj Kumar

Healthcare is perhaps the most complex safety-critical sector, and the challenges have only increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasingly, human and organisational factors have come under the spotlight. Manoj Kumar is a consultant general surgeon with a background also in safety, human factors, and training. In this conversation with Steven Shorrock, Manoj provides insights and perspectives on the realities of work in healthcare, and the team’s role in improvement.

Work-As-Imagined Solutioneering: Ten Traps Along the Yellow Brick Road

On major projects, some surprises unfold slowly via ‘work-as-imagined solutioneering’. Based on observations in several industries, Steven Shorrock presents ten traps that we can all fall into.

Surprises, Fast and Slow: Preparing for the Limits of Work-as-Imagined

This article is a reproduction of the Editorial published in HindSight magazine issue 34 in…

Learning About Healthcare Work in a Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had one of the biggest effects on work-as-done in healthcare in living memory. So what might we learn about work from the perspectives of frontline workers? I asked a variety of practitioners to give a short answer.

Human Factors at the Fringe: BaseCamp

A legendary rivalry: one mountain and two climbers seeking to be the best. We join…

Human Factors at The Fringe: My Eyes Went Dark

Written and directed by Matthew Wilkinson. A thrilling modern tragedy about a Russian architect driven…

Never/Zero Thinking

There has been much talk in recent years about ‘never events’ and ‘zero harm’, similar to talk in the safety community about ‘zero accidents’. It sounds obvious: no one would want an accident. And we all wish that serious harm would not result from accidents. But as expressed and implemented top-down, never/zero is problematic for many reasons. In this post, I shall outline just a few, as I see them.

If It Weren’t for the Managers…

“If only it weren’t for the managers, the goddamned managers, always getting tangled up in the…