Human Performance Handbook

By Tim Delorey

It's not Rocket Science! It's common sense that the fewer mistakes we make, the fewer problems we have to fix. Whether you like it or not, we all make mistakes and the consistent usage of the Human Performance Tools described here is a way to help minimize the frequency and severity of those mistakes. Correctly applied and practiced, they can be used in any industry or educational setting to reduce errors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781644683668

Book preview

Chapter 1

Human Performance

Since the dawn of man, we have a single human trait that has perpetuated throughout human history—we all make mistakes. Alexander Pope said, To error is human, to forgive divine. George Santayana said, Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

In the not too recent past we have begun carrying out investigations of errors or mishaps to gain lessons learned. We’ve investigated things that we can control such as plane crashes or industrial accidents and those we can’t such as volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. These investigations are done in an effort to understand the causes and prevent problems that we can control and to attempt to predict and mitigate the negative effects of those we can’t. This effort to control the effects of our errors to the extent possible is called the study of Human Performance.

Human Performance includes the study of individual events but also includes the underlying factors that were at the root or core of the problems, those situations that created the environment for the error to occur. These are also known as the Error Precursors or Error Likely Situations.

Error Precursors are those outside influences that impact the work that we’re performing, and they happen almost continually. Everything in our environment is competing for your attention.

Diverting or dividing your attention can result in serious errors, one in the news almost every day is distracted driving. This creates active errors or those errors that have an immediate and unwanted outcome. Latent Errors are those errors that have occurred prior to the active error that along with a given set of circumstances are the reasons the active error occurs. Possibly the most famous latent error occurred during the flight of Apollo 13. The latent error had occurred years before the flight and wasn’t realized until the stirring of the tanks created the situation of an active error. It was only through NASA’s determination and commitment, their refusal to fail, and the astronauts’ perseverance that finally brought the mission home safely.

Many everyday situations and events can have a profound impact on the work we do. Examples include:

Your health, are you feeling sick?

Your commute to and from work, is it too long, too congested?

Your home environment, stress over your personal life.

The location where you do your work—is it too hot or cold, proper lighting, too loud, etc.

That’s why Human Performance includes the study of what causes people to commit errors, or those Error Precursors. Some of the common Error Precursors for your work include situations corresponding to:

Time Pressure (Deadlines)

Miscommunications

Loss of Focus (Distractions)

First or Last day of work for the week

A first time performing the job (unfamiliarity with the work)

Heavy Workload

Overconfidence

Multitasking

Common Errors under these types of circumstances include:

Errors of Omission

Calculation Errors

Errors in Specifying

Communication Errors

Inspection Errors

Errors in Logic

Erroneous Assumptions

Application Errors

Documenting Errors

Many errors may seem minor or even insignificant but consider that a decimal point being carried one place too many in either direction has the potential of a magnitude of ten to the situation. A wrong part number can get you a washing machine instead of a simple washer.

Human Performance Tools are those methods that have been developed to decrease the probability of errors not being corrected. Will errors still occur? Yes, but with consistent and proper use of the techniques or Tools we can significantly reduce the number and severity of those errors.

All the Tools described here are not original to this book. Each had been developed long before this book was even thought of. They are however exchanged freely and without restriction in the Nuclear Power Industry.

Chapter 2

The Tools

Just like any tools that we use, the more you use them the more proficient you become with them. The Human Performance tools described here are no different, the more you utilize these techniques or tools the better they’ll work. The tools described here are a sampling of those that have been developed; some people develop specific tools for specific instances that they encounter.

Procedure Adherence means to follow your directions as written. Procedures should never be written to tell you what not to do, they aren’t general rules and they aren’t guidelines. A procedure must be written to provide specific, step-by-step direction to perform a task consistently every time no matter who is performing the function. They must be written to remove any ambiguity, otherwise don’t call them a