The ETTO Principle: Efficiency-Thoroughness Trade-Off

by Erik Hollnagel

Accident investigation and risk assessment have for decades focused on the human factor, particularly 'human error'. Countless books and papers have been written about how to identify, classify, eliminate, prevent and compensate for it. This bias towards the study of performance failures, leads to a neglect of normal or 'error-free' performance and the assumption that as failures and successes have different origins there is little to be gained from studying them together. Erik Hollnagel believes this assumption is false and that safety cannot be attained only by eliminating risks and failures. The ETTO Principle looks at the common trait of people at work to adjust what they do to match the conditions - to what has happened, to what happens, and to what may happen. It proposes that this efficiency-thoroughness trade-off (ETTO) - usually sacrificing thoroughness for efficiency - is normal. While in some cases the adjustments may lead to adverse outcomes, these are due to the very same processes that produce successes, rather than to errors and malfunctions. The ETTO Principle removes the need for specialised theories and models of failure and 'human error' and offers a viable basis for effective and just approaches to both reactive and proactive safety management.

Genres: Programming, Management, Nonfiction

162 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

Reviews

[Ryan Frantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone once said that after reading this book they couldn't help but see ETTO everywhere. I agree. Every action we take (or don't) requires a decision that balances several variables, especially constraints such as time, knowledge, and competing priorities. It's both necessary and good (generally) for us to make trade-offs between being efficient and thorough (with a strong tendency to the former). In terms of safety and resilience engineering, understanding ETTO helps us to understand factors that contribute to negative incidents. Crucially in this book, however, Hollnagel makes and reiterates a point that it's not enough to focus on when things go wrong; we must also spend time understanding how (most often) things go right. But, thanks to ETTO'ing, we tend to only report on negative events. If we can make time to understand the normal operations (and performance expectations) of our (socio-technical) systems, we can better understand (appreciate) what contributes to their failures.

This book is a pragmatic read and filled many useful references for the reader to learn more. I will be picking up a copy of Perrow's "Normal Accident Theory" thanks to those references.

[Ice Lord The Trader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read a series of books. Nothing to complicated. Just some self-help and some college text books here and there. I needed to learn a better way to manage the complexity of my life and boy did i receive a good explanation. This book has become a golden nugget in my arsenal of personal effectiveness. The ETTO principle has completely revolutionized my life and how i look at the world. It actually made the self help area seem kind of questionable since i found such a valuable insight in a random and unexpected location. As I looked at the book something about it just radiated toward me and as i began flipping through the pages I couldn't help but notice every single part of this book had a timeless application. Definitely worth a read. It is fairly simple and I couldn't stop reading it since I got it. Read it and devoured the book within a matter of days.