Where Birds Don't Fly

A Safety Management System (SMS) Focus Group is a place with ongoing learning activities, assessments or events, virtual event discussion, or anything else in safety one can think of. Focus groups discussions tend to capture deep and more personal responses from consumers rather than purely quantifiable data. Focus groups can assist with identifying and analyzing hazards identified in the risk assessment process. An SMS focus group works well for consulting with workers and enable the collection of meaningful data on perceptions of their work environment. Some of the reasons for a focus group are to obtain more detailed information and insights into the importance of hazards, to better understand opinions and issues regarding the work environment, to establish a safe and open environment, or just culture, to express views, to provide a broad representation of diverse ideas and experiences on safety assurance topics, and to generate strategies and solutions for addressing hazards. A foc...

The Safety Management System (SMS) for aviation is a practical system to lead personnel, manage equipment and validate operational design for improved performance above the safety risk level bar. The bar is always set at an acceptable risk level. This level may vary with size and complexity of an organization, prior experience and accepted practices, risk assessment and justification, or simply by arbitrary lines drawn-in-the-sand. There are no rules within a safety management system of what reasoning to use to establish the level of the safety risk bar. One reason could be that we always did it this way, or another reason could be to do what is least stressful and creating less of a workload.   There are regulatory requirements for a safety management system to include a safety policy, a process for setting goals and attainment of those goals, a process for identifying hazards and managing the associated risks, a process for training personnel and that they are competent to p...