Where Birds Don't Fly

It’s conventional wisdom out there that the only way to avoid accidents is to follow the rules. This includes an assumption that accidents are not affected by other factors than rule-deviations. One justification to make a rule-deviation the root-cause to a finding, pilot-error or failure to comply violation is that the intent of the rule was to improve safety. To ensure that a rule-deviation root cause is fairly applied to human behavior, there is a rule, or procedure made for every action required. If, for some reason there isn’t a rule, a pilot-error root cause cannot be applied. As an example, let’s say there is a wing-strike. The first step in the book is to identify who did it and what rule was not followed. If there is no rule there is no root cause. However, if there is a rule defining a minimum distance between a wingtip and an obstruction, the root cause is assigned as pilot-error root cause.  Knowing the rule does not equal safety in operations. It’s what you do. Issuing...

Both a safety policy and a goal-achievement plan are prerequisites for establishing SMS goals and objectives. A policy is general long-term statements representing global visions to lead an organization in a desirable direction. Goals must define where they fit into the policy and objectives must define how they support the goals. Goals are the specifics of what you want to achieve in your organization, including timelines. Goals are the What, Why and When of an enterprise. Objectives define strategies, processes or implementation steps to attain identified goals. Each objective is one specific building block of the goal, it’s measurable with a purpose, and have a defined completion date. Most important;’ objectives are compiled within a project plan to get all the ducks in a row. Each objective comes with a What, Why, Who, When (initiated) Where, How, When (completion) until completed. Effective goal setting strategy. Goal setting is in concept a simple process. It is to write down on...