August 29, 2025 | Mark Paradies

Learn/Share High-Reliability Best Practices

High-Reliability Best Practices

What is a high-reliability organization?

What does it take to create a high-reliability organization?

What tools need to be applied to achieve high reliability?

What can stop high reliability?

All the topics above (and more) are part of the High-Reliability Best Practices Track at the 2025 Global TapRooT® Summit, which will be held in Knoxville, Tennessee, from October 1 to 3. If you are interested in high reliability or are trying to achieve high reliability at your facility, you should attend to learn and share high-reliability best practices to achieve best-in-class performance.

Want to know more? Then read on for details about the High-Reliability Best Practices Track and the 2025 Global TapRooT® Summit…

Not Research: Real-World Experience & Lessons Learned

Mark Paradies, president of System Improvements, is organizing this track at the Summit. He has used his knowledge of high-reliability operations, observations of high-reliability organizations, and connections with people with real high-reliability experience to develop this track.

Why should you attend? Because the field of high reliability is filled with advice that one could call “suspect.” Advice is given by people who have never achieved high reliability or lived in a high-reliability organization. They don’t know the real cost of achieving high reliability. The:

long hours
attention to detail
focus on conservative decisions
avoiding normalization of deviation
management training and technical qualifications
total responsibility
ability to face the facts and make difficult decisions

and all the other details that are required to achieve high reliability.

That’s why Mark gathered people with real-world, high-reliability experience to share their best practices and lessons learned. Best practices and lessons learned that you need to hear about.

Sessions in the High-Reliability Organization Best Practices Track

Here are the nine High-Reliability Organization Best Practices Track sessions and how they can help you meet your goals…

Admiral Rickover’s Original High-Reliability Organization

This session explains how Admiral Rickover created it, the standards he set, the performance he achieved, and how the Nuclear Navy’s performance has been maintained long after Admiral Rickover retired. Not all the Nuclear Navy stories are success stories. Some improvements could be implemented. But if you understand the standards maintained by the Nuclear Navy, you will realize why governmentally required programs fall short and continue to allow process safety accidents.

Mark Paradies, the speaker for this session, was interviewed by Admiral Rickover, served on two nuclear-powered ships, was qualified as an “Engineer” by NAVSEA 08 (the headquarters Nuclear Navy organization), and has studied Rickover’s methods for decades.

This session will share best practices and dispel myths about high-reliability culture. It will provide a basis for any high-reliability program.

Peer Reviews and Inspections for High Compliance – 2025 Summit Session

Have you ever wondered how the Nuclear Navy achieves high reliability? Ken Reed, Justin Clark, Mark Paradies, and Gard Clark (all former Navy Nukes) will discuss their personal experiences performing or being on the receiving end of Nuclear Navy inspections, reviews, and audits.

This session is a panel discussion. After Mark, Ken, Justin, and Gard discuss their personal experiences, the audience can ask questions and benefit from their expertise.

This is an excellent opportunity to learn about the various inspections, peer reviews, and audits used to avoid normalization of deviation and maintain high reliability. Attend this session and use the guidance to decide what reviews might be implemented at your facility to improve performance.

Training Beyond the Mistake

Some say that mistakes are inevitable. If they are, what should we do? Erika Armstrong, author of “The Chick in the Cockpit” and aviation training expert, will share an aviation high-reliability best practice: Training Beyond the Mistake.

Learn from this session and develop ideas for how your company can benefit by training your operators beyond the mistake.

Sharing Ideas to Achieve High Reliability and Performance (Roundtable)

Justin Clark will facilitate a best practice sharing session to share ideas about achieving high reliability and performance. The session will start with three ideas from three industries (engineering, aviation manufacturing, and refinery maintenance) presented by Gard Clark, Randy Creek, and Mark Olson, all long-time TapRooT® Instructors with extensive high reliability/performance experience.

Next, the participants at each table will share best practices from their experience promoting benchmarking and networking.

Attend this session to share and learn valuable best practices to improve reliability and performance at your company.

Root Cause Analysis for High-Performance Organizations

Tim Diggs, Track Leader for the Improvement Best Practices Track, will facilitate this session where three experienced TapRooT® Users will share their best practices for using root cause analysis to improve performance and reliability in three different sessions.

Attend this session to hear about these TapRooT® Users’ experiences and ask questions to develop ideas of how to apply root cause analysis to improve performance at your facility.

Procedure Writing & Use for High-Reliability

Excellent, accurate procedures that are consistently used to ensure work is performed error-free are key to high-reliability organizational performance. Amy Sounders (VP at System Improvements, TapRooT® Instructor, and Track Leader for the TapRooT® Instructor Certification Track) will share best practices for procedure development to ensure usable, accurate procedures. She will also present ideas for making procedure use a standard part of everyday work.

This is an excellent session to attend if improving procedure usability and use is an issue that needs to be addressed at your facility.

Fatigue and Human Error

Bill Davis, Vice President of Operations at Circadian, will discuss the impact of fatigue on human performance and what you can do to minimize its impact on high-reliability operations.

Almost every 24-hour operation faces the challenge of managing fatigue. This session will share fatigue minimization practices and how to develop a fatigue risk management program. If fatigue is an issue at your site, don’t miss this session.

Lions, Tigers, and Bears, OH MY! Don’t Fear the Equifactor®

Equipment reliability is an essential part of a high-reliability organization. Justin Clark, TapRooT® RCA and Equifactor® Equipment Troubleshooting Instructor and Track Leader for the Maintenance and Reliability Best Practices Track, will demonstrate how easy applying a world-class troubleshooting tool to solve equipment reliability issues is.

You might think that solving equipment reliability issues is too difficult. Justin will change your mind and show you how to adopt the best practices from equipment reliability expert Heinz Bloch in your improvement efforts.

Mistakes By Design

Do you realize that mistakes may be designed into your facility? High-reliability organizations can’t tolerate poorly designed work and error-like situations. Alex Paradies, Vice President at System Improvements and Track Leader for the Human Performance Best Practices Track, will share examples of mistakes designed into the work and how you can recognize and eliminate these issues.

If human error is a problem you are trying to conquer to become a high-reliability organization, attend this session.

Mix and Match Session to Customize Your Summit Experience

If any of the sessions above don’t fit your plans for performance improvement to achieve high reliability, don’t forget: you can pick sessions from other tracks during registration to make the Summit perfect for your improvement goals.

More Summit Information

There is more to the Summit than just the sessions in a best practice track. First, there are five outstanding Keynote Speakers at the Summit. You will hear from these experts about their life experiences and how they can help you achieve world-class performance at your company.

The Keynote Speakers are another reason you need to be at the 2025 Global TapRooT® Summit. What else should make attending the Summit high on your priorities for 2025? Read on…

Networking

One thing we have always emphasized at the Global TapRooT® Summit is meeting people, networking, and benchmarking your programs with others. We start this at the opening session and continue it throughout the Summit. Plus, we have learned to make networking fun.

Many say the Summit is worth attending just because of the new people you meet (adding to your network). In addition to networking, the Summit includes best practices for sharing and outstanding keynote speakers. This makes the experience very valuable for someone interested in performance improvement.

Pre-Summit Courses

This year, 11 pre-Summit Courses will be held on September 29-30 to help you learn even more ways to make your company’s performance world-class.

Alex teaching a TapRooT® ® Course / Training

What are the courses you can pick from to attend?

Click on the link above to learn more about a course that interests you. When you register for a pre-Summit Course and the Summit you can SAVE $300 OFF the course fee.

If you plan to attend the High-Realiability Organization Best Practices Track, I recommend attending the Stopping Human Error Course as a compliment to the information and best practices shared in that track.

Bring a Team

One way to get even more value from the Summit is to bring a team.

Face it. You can’t do everything yourself. You need a team to help your company achieve world-class performance. The Summit is an excellent place for your team to learn new ways to improve performance.

Having your team attend the Summit will help your team develop a game plan and a roadmap to achieve excellence. You can align the company’s improvement efforts and return to work motivated to put what you have learned to work.

Plus, when you bring a team, you will get discounts on courses and the Summit. See the discounts available below…

SUMMIT GUARANTEE

If you have any doubt about how worthwhile the Summit will be, let us remove all doubt with this GUARANTEE:

Attend the Global TapRooT® Summit. Go back to work and implement your roadmap to success. If you don’t save 10 times the cost of the Summit fee, let us know and return your Summit materials and we will refund 100% of the Summit registration fee. This guarantee shows how certain we are that you will learn valuable best practices to take your team’s performance—and that of your whole organization—to the next level.

That should make you feel comfortable about your decision to attend the 2025 Global TapRooT® Summit.

REGISTER NOW!

Don’t wait. Get the budget and approvals you need and register NOW!