Incidents happen, and when they do, the causes are investigated, and the findings used to drive continuous improvement in safe operations. The procedures and methods for incident investigation and implementation of corrective actions are highly developed and widely practiced. However, this approach remains a reactive one, working to find and implement areas for improvement only after something has gone wrong. We do not need to wait for an incident to occur to learn lessons, improve our safety, and prevent future incidents. Each day, workers in the oil and gas industry go to work, perform their regular duties, and encounter challenges to which they adapt and overcome, all without incident. Valuable and actionable lessons about safety can be found in the everyday work, and these lessons can be used to develop more effective safety controls and reduce risks. We can and should learn from ‘normal work’.
IOGP’s new guidance, Learning from normal work, supports operational and corporate leaders in improving learning and extracting actionable lessons from everyday operations.
Written by IOGP’s Safety Committee, the guidance focuses on a variety of tools and approaches to help improve efficiency, reduce non-productive time, and support operational and corporate leaders in engaging people at all levels in an organization to ensure consistently safe workplaces.
It is applicable to both onshore and offshore operations, and is intended to complement an organizations existing standards, procedures, and processes.
This guidance also introduces Kate, a heavy delivery truck driver, whose story inspired by real situations is used to demonstrate how the concepts apply in real life. The story unfolds throughout the document culminating with an example of how to apply practical tools to learn when nothing goes wrong.
The guidance recognizes that implementing proactive learning may be challenging. Therefore, additional resources for practitioners are being developed.
Download Learning from Normal Work from the publications library.
