Special seminar: Creating a learning organisation
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Incidents and accidents in a wide range of industries around the world have shown that organisations are poor at learning from their own experience and from the experiences of others.
All too often, investigations into accidents and incidents find that the underlying causes were the same as in previous events. Incidents in the rail, aviation, chemical, nuclear and other industries are often similar to incidents which have occurred before. A 'learning organisation' is one that not only values and encourages learning from its own experiences, but looks beyond itself for lessons - to similar companies in the same industry and to other industries. This is one of the seven key elements identified by HSE in improving safety management, leadership and safety culture.
Learning organisations are characterised by a state of 'chronic unease', for example, they actively seek out information even in areas that appear to be running smoothly. These organisations also 'amplify weak signals' - straining to hear and learn from apparently weak signals, such as the perceptions of frontline staff or lessons from near misses.
This one day symposium will explore barriers to organisational learning and how learning lessons can be made more effective. It will address topics such as getting to root causes, learning from audits, near miss reporting, blame and accountability, communications, corporate memory, leadership, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
We have an excellent line-up of speakers for the day:
- Ian Hamilton, Technical Director, Human Engineering Ltd
- Liz Carver, KM Lead, Advanced Technology Centre
- Tim Hawley, Associate Director, Arup
- Emma Lowe, Senior Ergonomist, Network Rail
- Peter Dawson, Principal Specialist Inspector, HSE
- Melinda Lyons, NPSA
- Richard Scaife, Director, The Keil Centre
- Rob Miles, Principal Specialist Inspector, Human Factors, HSE
- Mike Williams, University of Exeter
Creating a learning organisation
