Sunny good point that you make
:
I know what it feels like as a "know nothing manager" in a field I shouldn't have been in (Large IT systems) and my first response to the challenge of responding to highly complex and confusing situatoins was to try and build a set of rules like Dolans - with a little box into which to categorise each and every event. Other floundering managers will do likewise as they struggle to make sense of what is happening.
Perhaps this highlights how ill equipped Beaker is for this particular bureaucratic position?? Beaker even tries to justify his position with this spin:
4.34 The committee put this proposition to the ATSB. Chief Commissioner Dolan responded:
That is a simplification of the purpose of that table. We will do a risk
assessment of an identified safety factor. This is not about assessment of
evidence, this is about assessment of safety issues—a safety factor that is
seen to have a continuing effect on risk to assess the likelihood and the
consequence of that factor coming into play in the future. That is our basis
for establishing the significance of a safety issue. It is not the basis on
which we will assess evidence.
If you are looking for the philosophical underpinnings of how we deal with
evidence and a range of other things, there is a document, Analysis,
causality and proof in safety investigations, which was a publication of
Dr Walker and Mr Bills in 2008. That shows the philosophical
underpinnings of how we deal with facts, evidence, analysis and so on. It is
reflected in our policies and procedures in the organisation. The risk
assessments largely draw on or are compressed versions of international
safety organisation risk management standards. We are trying to bring all
that to bear on a diverse range of operations, while bearing in mind the
guidance from the government that our attention should primarily be on the
safety of the travelling public.32
Again ‘beancounter’ Beaker takes the mickey bliss out of an excellent research paper by Dr Walker and Mr Bills ‘Analysis, causality and proof in safety investigations’ to support his main aim of fiscal discipline (for his Minister), again at the detriment of SAFETY….sheesh enough said!