Do The Best Ideas Come From Operators?
“Operators have the best ideas because
they are closest to the work.”
Have you heard the phrase about learning teams or investigations? I have heard it quoted many times and in many ways. Here is a quote from the UK Health & Safety Executive’s ‘Employee Involvement in Health and Safety: Some Examples of Good Practice:
“Most of the good ideas come from the operatives
because they are the ones who get frustrated
with having to deal with certain situations
day in and day out.”
It occurs to me that most of the BAD IDEAS also come from operators for the same reason.
Perhaps it is because they are dealing with the problem day in and day out that they look for ideas to solve it. Some of those ideas are good. Some ideas send people to the hospital.
Often, HOP consultants try to sell you that their solutions are better because they involve the operator. However, involving the operator will not, by itself, make your learning better or worse.
Why Involve The Operator?
There is a benefit to involving operators in investigations and learning teams. They are the closest to the problem, allowing them to better describe it. They also help in 3 other ways:
- Provide context behind why things are done a particular way.
- Know the history of how the task has been performed.
- Identifying unintended consequences of new ideas.
Problems Involving The Operator
There are also drawbacks to involving operators. The largest is bias. Each group you bring into your team (engineering, safety, quality, maintenance, or operations) will be biased. They want to avoid being blamed and assigned additional work. You must account for this and adjust for this.make adjustments
TapRooT® RCA accounts for bias by ensuring people ask the right questions. The TapRooT® Root Cause Tree® Diagram and Dictionary guides an investigation team to root causes using simple but powerful human performance questions. This reduces bias and focuses the process on fixing system issues rather than “fixing” people.
Getting the Best Ideas From Operators
Not everyone has great ideas, but a great idea can come from anyone. You should involve operators because they can come up with incredible ideas. To get the best ideas from operators, involve them in 5 key ways in your learning processes.
- Gathering facts
- Understanding context
- Defining the problem
- Brainstorming corrective actions
- Looking for the unintended consequences of corrective actions
The Root Cause Tree® Diagram will help you identify the root cause, but you will still need to exercise your team’s creativity and ingenuity to fix the problem. To help, the TapRooT® System includes the Corrective Action Helper® Guide.
To learn how to apply the TapRooT® System to both simple and complex investigations with operators on the team, attend the 5-Day Advanced TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Training. Click HERE for the dates and locations of upcoming public courses.
