Errordinary: Human Error Everywhere
Hi ,
When I worked at UCL, I ran a public engagement project called Errordinary. Some people still use the hashtag #errordiary on Twitter to report the silly things they do in everyday life, or the more serious reports of human error in the media.
Someone who followed this actually thought it was errordinary, which is why I chose this as the title.
At work though, we kind of expect people to be error proof, and treat errors as extraordinary. It’s not usually the case that people are inattentive and lazy, we’re just human.
What’s interesting is that the same psychological principles are at play between the little, less obvious errors we do at home on a daily basis and the more serious things that can happen at work.
Let me get more specific:
When I worked at UCL, I ran a public engagement project called Errordinary. Some people still use the hashtag #errordiary on Twitter to report the silly things they do in everyday life, or the more serious reports of human error in the media.
Someone who followed this actually thought it was errordinary, which is why I chose this as the title.
At work though, we kind of expect people to be error proof, and treat errors as extraordinary. It’s not usually the case that people are inattentive and lazy, we’re just human.
What’s interesting is that the same psychological principles are at play between the little, less obvious errors we do at home on a daily basis and the more serious things that can happen at work.
Let me get more specific:
- You put the chips in the oven too long because you misread the cooking time > A tank is overfilled because a gauge is misread at a chemical plant.
- You miss a step while assembling flat pack furniture > Operator forgets to close a valve or doesn’t do something they should have done on an assembly line.
- You pour orange juice rather than milk on your cornflakes > A police officer pulls out their gun rather than their tazer or the wrong connection/equipment/pipe is used.
- You put the toast down in the toaster for a second time and burn it > Medication is given twice on a ward because it’s not recorded the first time.
Have you experienced any errors like this at home or in your organisation?
Well, this is what we’re all about at HRA. We study these types of errors and consider these types of potentials all the time.
Why? Because we’re nerds, sadly true, but there are more important reasons too…
… what we really want to avoid is an ineffective response to the risk of error. We study Human Factors because we want to help organisations and the staff who work for them to find productive and practical ways to set people up for success.
We’ll talk about that in the next email.
Watch out for the one with the ‘The four key barriers to learning from error’
Dominic
Dominic Furniss
Senior Human Factors Consultant
Human Reliability Associates
P.S. If you’re in the Process Industry and want to skip ahead to see how to improve Human Factors and reduce the risk of human error for critical tasks take a look at our flagship course here:
https://the.humanreliabilityacademy.com/courses/human-factors-SCTA
Well, this is what we’re all about at HRA. We study these types of errors and consider these types of potentials all the time.
Why? Because we’re nerds, sadly true, but there are more important reasons too…
… what we really want to avoid is an ineffective response to the risk of error. We study Human Factors because we want to help organisations and the staff who work for them to find productive and practical ways to set people up for success.
We’ll talk about that in the next email.
Watch out for the one with the ‘The four key barriers to learning from error’
Dominic
Dominic Furniss
Senior Human Factors Consultant
Human Reliability Associates
P.S. If you’re in the Process Industry and want to skip ahead to see how to improve Human Factors and reduce the risk of human error for critical tasks take a look at our flagship course here:
https://the.humanreliabilityacademy.com/courses/human-factors-SCTA
Human Reliability Associates, 1 School House, Higher Lane, Dalton, Wigan, WN8 7RP, United Kingdom
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