RE: Unsubstantiated and/or false allegations (was RE: Nobody reviewedthe manuals)

["Sarah Stegall" <sstegall -at- bivio -dot- net>]

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I worked for one of the
largest forensic engineering firms in the world. We handled hundreds of
cases every year, covering everything from individual auto wrecks to
space shuttle disasters. I personally hold a certificate in hazmat
management, and worked on several incidents. One of our most famous
cases was, until this year, the biggest oil spill in history; another
famous case was the most deadly oil rig disaster in history. 

One of the lessons that came through loud and clear to me was that
people can be trained and tested and drilled, and still lose their cool
when it comes to an emergency. Because nobody believes it will really
happen.

Human beings make decisions based on their experience, more than on
their "training". So if you've drilled dozens and dozens of oil wells
without mishap, if your BOP (blow out preventer) has worked every time
there was a failure, if your procedures have worked 99.999% of the time,
what is a reasonable person going to do when faced with the 100th
instance? Your experience tells you that everything will work out just
fine. Do most of us go through life anticipating disaster? Or do we
assume that, like the 999 times before, this deviation from routine will
prove trivial? 

What bothers me about all the finger-pointing re: the oil spill is that
it assumes that there is no such thing as an accident, or that all
accidents are preventable. No matter what the Man from BP may have said
to the rig boss, no matter what the manuals may have told people to do,
nobody thought the BOP would fail, that the rig would catch fire, that
eleven men would die, and that the rig would make everything worse by
hitting the pipeline when it sank. Nobody envisioned a disaster of this
magnitude, just as nobody wrote a disaster procedure for the collapse of
BOTH World Trade Centers. Until a real catastrophe happens, "common
sense" tells you that it won't. And it doesn't--that's why they make the
news. They're statistical anomalies.

We can take a lesson from this, particularly if we write training
manuals for hazardous situations. Most people, confronted with a
decision that weighs the statistically less probable consequence of a
fire, explosion and spill, against the absolute dead certainty of losing
a well-paying job in a tough market, will save the job. The job is a
real, actual thing; the disaster is a remote possibility. Most mature
adults will bet on the sure thing and not the remote possibility. 

I hold BP responsible for the oil spill, but I'm not going to demonize
them. Blame attaches to many entities. I think a lot of the animus
against BP, however, is inchoate rage at what is going to happen to our
coastlines, looking for a scapegoat. In other words, instinctive,
unconscious, and reactionary behavior.

A well written manual is meaningless in that scenario.

Sarah

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sstegall=bivio -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sstegall=bivio -dot- net -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Kathleen MacDowell
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 7:26 PM
To: McLauchlan, Kevin
Cc: Combs, Richard; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Unsubstantiated and/or false allegations (was RE: Nobody
reviewedthe manuals)

[snip]

Get real people. This is risk taking at monumental levels, and it's done
because the risk is financially affordable. I apologize to our dear list
owner if I've overstepped, but manuals aside, this is a huge issue that
impacts us all beyond them. If you're going to bring it down to what we
do,
let's talk about usability and promoting ways to get the information to
people in a way that they can use.

Kathleen

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