Safety-I and Safety-II

by Erik Hollnagel

Safety has traditionally been defined as a condition where the number of adverse outcomes was as low as possible (Safety-I). From a Safety-I perspective, the purpose of safety management is to make sure that the number of accidents and incidents is kept as low as possible, or as low as is reasonably practicable. This means that safety management must start from the manifestations of the absence of safety and that - paradoxically - safety is measured by counting the number of cases where it fails rather than by the number of cases where it succeeds. This unavoidably leads to a reactive approach based on responding to what goes wrong or what is identified as a risk - as something that could go wrong. Focusing on what goes right, rather than on what goes wrong, changes the definition of safety from ’avoiding that something goes wrong’ to ’ensuring that everything goes right’. More precisely, Safety-II is the ability to succeed under varying conditions, so that the number of intended and acceptable outcomes is as high as possible. From a Safety-II perspective, the purpose of safety management is to ensure that as much as possible goes right, in the sense that everyday work achieves its objectives. This means that safety is managed by what it achieves (successes, things that go right), and that likewise it is measured by counting the number of cases where things go right. In order to do this, safety management cannot only be reactive, it must also be proactive. But it must be proactive with regard to how actions succeed, to everyday acceptable performance, rather than with regard to how they can fail, as traditional risk analysis does. This book analyses and explains the principles behind both approaches and uses this to consider the past and future of safety management practices. The analysis makes use of common examples and cases from domains such as aviation, nuclear power production, process management and health care. The final chapters explain the theoret

Genres: Aviation

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Emanuele Gemelli]

Difficult, challenging, but inspiring. This is not a simple book by any means. It uses technical and theoretical language that is difficult to translate into a layman language into real practical ways to do your business. I am not satisfied how are we dealing with safety anymore, we reached a point where incidents are random events (without real proper solution on how to identify the next big thing) and we continue to preach policies (target zero, IIF, etc) that are no more aspirations than actual achievable goals (ask to any worker!). This is not like Columbus's egg, but it does make a lot of sense for a safety professional. Buy it, read it and disseminate it's!

[Charlie]

A very informative book with and good introduction to system safety. The ideas contained in this book are no less than revolutionary, and a call to think of new ways to do safety differently. Safety II "making sure things go right" is an interesting concept to consider with the backdrop of autonomous vehicle deployment. In some ways it is a step backwards to making things go wrong. It will be interesting to see if there will be a regression to Safety I or a Safety III

[Sean Michael von Gunten]

Good book with great examples of each principle being taught. But I wasn't the target audience fit this book. This book is best suited for someone studying for a CPPS, HRO certification, or training in Human Factors - not someone who already has these. A good primer for someone studying for any kind of safety/risk work.

[Vicki Wilkerson Christy]

Probably the best book on safety that I've read in the past decade. Pro-active management and positive facing (what goes right?) are much more palatable than being the 'safety police' who catch you doing something 'wrong'

[Mark Perrett]

Once you get past the highly inaccurate and overly criticat account of Safety I, you Then get introduced to a new view of safety that is apparently far more superior to Safety I, only to then be told that Safety I is not so bad after all, and Safety II includes safety I. Make up your mind, Erik.

[Stephen Bar Ner Wulkan]

Hollnagel is inspiring

The slow but constant insinuations of the author and the following it is building will eventually tip the scales to this way of seeing safety and all other aspects of productivity

[Lorin Hochstein]

Hollnagel introduced the concept of Safety-II, and it has been enormously influential in the safety science community.

But this particular book was a disappointment. The impact of the work is hampered by the absence of good examples from the field.

[Peter Blokland]

A modern view on safety!

[Victor Bolbot]

5-star as this book is indeed offering some new complementary perspectives on what is safety and how to achieve it.