Mark Alston makes the case that incident over-classification overloads safety teams and hides serious risk.
Most safety teams investigate every incident the same way, and learn almost nothing. In this myosh Academy webinar, Mark Alston of Investigations Differently shows how to classify events for organisational learning and systemic risk reduction, using the Event Learning Assessment.
In this session: Mark Alston makes the case that incident over-classification overloads safety teams and hides serious risk. He walks through the Event Learning Assessment, a decision framework that matches the level of investigation to the genuine opportunity to learn and reduce risk, and explains how to define ‘credible potential’, when to use learning teams and event insights, and why giving your team ‘permission not to investigate’ is essential. Grounded in real incidents from mining, logistics and manufacturing, it’s a practical hour for any HSEQ professional drowning in investigations that change nothing.
Key takeaways:
• Classify events on their potential for learning and risk reduction, not injury outcome
• ‘Credible potential’ means reasonable and plausible, not every conceivable what-if.
• Give your team permission not to investigate what won’t teach them anything.
• Investigations must deliver a return: what did we learn that we didn’t already know?
• An investigation is simply a risk assessment after a potential event