March 5, 2018 | Mark Paradies

Highlights from the 2018 Global TapRooT® Summit

Highlight Reel

Coming up with a highlight reel from the 2018 Global TapRooT® Summit is almost impossible. I always think that the Summit just can’t get any better, and then we outdo ourselves planning the next one. Here are some highlights, followed by the top six items attendees shared that they needed to do better at their facilities.

First, a video to share the experience…

By the way, the next Global TapRooT® Summit is scheduled for March 11-15, 2019, in Houston (Montgomery, TX) at the La Torretta Lake Resort & Spa (picture below).

Now for my impressions of the highlights …

First, the Keynote Speakers were outstanding.

We started with Dr. Carol Gunn, who gave an inspiring talk about medical errors and how to encourage error reporting and effective investigations. Carol is a TapRooT® User and medical doctor … she knows what she is talking about.

Next, we had an UNBELIEVABLE talk by Boaz Rauchwerger, who told us all to take a positive approach to improvement.

The final keynote on Wednesday was Inky Johnson. How can I explain how he inspired us? There was a long line of people who just came up to thank Inky and get their picture taken with him. If you don’t know Inky’s story. watch it below for motivation to accomplish more in life.

After Inky’s keynote, Carl Dixon entertained us at the Summit Reception. Here I am singing Proud Mary with him…

On Thursday, I was the opening keynote and concluded with a TapRooT® Implementation Gap Analysis. People shared where they needed to improve their TapRooT® implementation. What were the top 6 items they needed to do better?

Use advanced root cause analysis (TapRooT®) for both reactive and proactive investigations.
Use an investigation rewards program more effectively.
Guide their improvement programs through management’s use of performance measures and advanced trending techniques.
Proactive improvement that drives improvement success (tie with 5).
Develop a leadership succession plan.
Communicate improvement accomplishments successfully.

These items will help us plan sessions for next year’s Summit.

Vincent Phipps closed out the day with his discussion of the four personality types and how to use them to communicate more effectively.

On Friday, we started with the session that helped attendees develop plans to fill their program gaps (started with the gap analysis performed on Thursday).

Then, I (Mark Paradies) interviewed Mike Williams about his experiences when the Deepwater Horizon experienced a blowout, explosion(s), and fire. Wow! What an experience. People were sitting on the edge of their seats as Mike answered my questions and all the questions from the Summit participants. We actually ran over the finish time by 15 minutes as people asked interesting questions. The lessons learned from this one session about emergency response, investigations, and safety were … UNBELIEVABLE! I learned several things about the accident that I didn’t know from the various reports (CSB, Presidential Commission, BP, or Coast Guard) that added to my understanding of the Causal Factors and root causes. There was also an important lesson for investigators about empathy and PTSD after a major accident.

And that’s just a summary of the Keynote Speakers’ impact. There were also some great Best Practice Sharing sessions and speakers. My favorite was the TapRooT® Users Share Best Practices Session (soon, you will be seeing videos from this session to share some of the best practices).

Here are what some TapRooT® Users had to say about their 2018 Global TapRooT® Summit experience…