Welcome to the Errordiary learning area, or ‘Brain Food’ as we like to call it. This area is dedicated learning materials that we hope will help you understand more about human error, resilience and surrounding topics.
Our first topic is ‘Not only stupid people make errors!‘ In this topic we explore the universality of human error. Everyone makes errors. Even the most competent, expert users of a system will, given enough time and the right conditions, make an error.
Of course, not all errors are created equal, they can occur because people don’t know what they are doing or because they are fatigued or distracted. Our second topic is ‘What is the difference between a slip and mistake?‘ Here we discuss what causes different kinds of errors.
So who is to blame? Should we just blame the person who was there when the error occurred? What about the way that other people had structured the system in which they had to work? Our third topic ‘Human Error Connoisseurs: Individual vs Systems perspectives‘, looks at the relationship between users, systems and errors.
What makes some workplaces focus on the role of individuals in error, rather than on systemic problems? In our fourth topic ‘Blame culture, Learning culture, Just culture‘, we examine different workplace cultures surrounding human error and their effects on how organisations prevent future errors.
We can avoid making errors by adopting strategies that make it harder for errors to creep into work. These resilient strategies might be ways of avoiding error in the first place or ways to minimise the impact of errors when they do care. Topic five, ‘What are resilience strategies?‘ discusses what resilient strategies are and how you can contribute to our effort to understand them.
Errordiary is the product of its contributors. No contributors, no Errordiary. Our final topic, ‘Purpose and Ethics of Errordiary‘, explores where Errordiary is going as a community, and we put forward our ideas on the ethics of this kind of project.
Showcasing some interesting external blogs…
- ‘Human error’: The handicap of human factors, safety and justice – Is human error a dated term?
- WORKING TO RULE? – This elaborates on the complex issues of violations.
- Lots of great examples of Work Screwups
- A white paper contrasting Safety I and Safety II from EUROCONTROL
Special Articles…
- Using everyday errors to understand more serious ones with Errordiary
Patient Safety…
- Can Errordiary be used to support patient safety education?
- What ‘resilience strategies’ help medical professionals reduce error & improve performance?
People with Diabetes…
- Can resilience strategies help with diabetes management?
- Summary of an OurDiabetes Tweetchat on resilience and error