The Field Guide to Human Error Investigations FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Human error may be the dominant contributor to incidents and accidents today; it is probably also the most misunderstood. Little or no guidance is available for those who need to reconstruct the human contribution to system failure. Human error investigations are often forced to follow a path of intuition or common sense and are exposed to the distortions of hindsight. This Field Guide suggests methods, reminders and pointers that are well-grounded in the theoretical underpinnings of understanding human performance in complex contexts, helping investigators produce credible, well-documented findings." The Field Guide's premise is that human error is systematically connected to features of people's tools and tasks. If we want to understand what went on in people's minds, we must begin with a reconstruction of the situation in which the mind found itself. The key to an investigation is not to point out where people went wrong, but to understand how their assessments and actions made sense inside that situation at the time. The Field Guide offers investigators a way of how to do this.
FROM THE CRITICS
Booknews
Accident investigators historically have used hindsight to look at where people went wrong to reconstruct the human contribution to system failure; Dekker suggests a different approach. Arguing that human error is systematically connected to aspects of people's tools and tasks, he suggests that understanding what went on in people's minds during an accident requires reconstructing the situation that the mind found itself in. His suggested methods, reminders, and pointers help investigators visualize how people's assessments and actions made sense at the time. Dekker (Linköping Institute of Technology, Sweden) is a cognitive systems engineer and pilot. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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