[SystemSafety] Teaching and Storytelling in Safety

[Drew Rae]

Last week we held the Australian Safety Critical Systems conference. Great keynotes from Chris Johnson and Paul Caseley (known to many on this list) and from Johan Bergstrom and John Green (who move in Resilience and Safety-II circles). Chris's talk was about the danger of naive approaches to the intersection between safety and security. Paul provided a preview of the opportunities and concerns for safety arising from future technology.  

My own talk was about tribalism and closed-communities in safety. I've been thinking a lot recently about how and what we teach, particularly since in system safety practice has tended to lead underlying theory. Whilst we claim to teach understanding rather than methods, I'm always somewhat shocked by the amount of ignorance of underlying theory. This leads to questions such as "Should I use HAZOP, Fault Trees, or STPA?" as if they are interchangeable methods, without any understanding that they emerged from different schools of thought about how accidents occur and can be prevented. 

An in-depth discussion about safety teaching is probably off-topic for this mailing list, but if anyone else is interested in sharing thoughts about curriculum, teaching methods, and assessment, please let me know. I've started a LinkedIn group "Safety Education" to facilitate conversations, and published my own starting thoughts in a Cognition, Techology and Work paper available from my personal homepage ajrae.com/publications

Drew

* This message is from my work email
* I can also be contacted on andrew at ajrae.com
* My mobile number is 0450 161 361
* My desk phone is 07 37359764
* My safety podcast is DisasterCast.co.uk





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