People in Control: A Conversation With Captain James Burnell

Aviation is heavily reliant on procedures, but procedures can never replace human adaptivity in all…

The Wrong Kidney

The post discusses a short fictional film, ‘The Wrong Kidney’, created to explore the complexities…

“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 Is It Just So Difficult? Barriers to ‘Just Culture’ in the Real World

This article is a reproduction of an article published in HindSight magazine issue 35 in September 2023 (all issues available…

Who Are We to Judge? From Work-as-Done to Work-as-Judged

This article is a reproduction of the Editorial published in HindSight magazine issue 35 in September 2023 (all issues…

Postcards From Work: Exploring Archetypes of Human Work Through Micro-Narratives

Understanding the complexities and nuances of human work is critical if we are to improve how work really works. In healthcare, as clinicians and other healthcare professionals navigate their roles, they encounter a diverse array of situations that create goal conflicts, dilemmas and other challenges. One way to explore these is via micro-narratives. These are short stories based on personal observations and experiences. One method to capture these is via simple written postcards. Postcards from Work (Healthcare Edition) delves into these experiences.

Learning in the Heat of the Moment: An Interview With Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

In the heat of the moment, how do we make decisions, individually and collectively? And how can we improve decision-making at work? Steven Shorrock interviews firefighter and psychologist Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, about her work on decision-making in the emergency services, her journey from firefighter to Chief Fire Officer, and her extraordinary life.

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.

Proxies for Work-as-Done: 2. Work-as-Prescribed

In this series of short posts, I outline briefly some proxies for work-as-done. This post concerns work-as-prescribed.

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.