Technical Advice
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Latent Threats: When training bites back
Read more: Latent Threats: When training bites backLatent Threats: When training bites back. This blog is about Latent Threats. Threats that lurk undetected in training systems, procedures and practice. In a previous blog post, Threat Managers: Rethinking Risk, we described the approach of Threat and Error Management. Specifically we described threats as being inherent in mountaineering, the need to manage them, and…
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Threat Managers: Rethinking risk
Read more: Threat Managers: Rethinking riskThreat Managers: Rethinking risk. This blog is about the management of risk in the outdoor sector, the challenges with risk and a way forward. Here I argue that we need to rethink our notions of risk, explaining the approach of Threat and Error Management (TEM). Mountain Professionals are well placed to act as “Threat Managers”.…
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Slow is smooth, smooth EQUALS FAST
Read more: Slow is smooth, smooth EQUALS FASTSlow is smooth, smooth equals fast is the title of this blog. In climbing and mountaineering there is prestige in speed. Perhaps even an association with speed and competence… This is a blog about the culture of speed in the training, assessment and practice of mountain professionals. It is always there, sometimes pervasive and certainly…
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Safety by PowerPoint…
Read more: Safety by PowerPoint…Safety by powerpoint. This is a blog about assumptions or preconceptions about safety management in the outdoor sector. This isn’t just the domain of senior instructors and heads of outdoor centres but a function of our collective behaviour. “I sat down quietly in the instructors briefing having introduced myself and listened intently. Accustomed to meetings…
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Exotic Behaviour: Cultural norms and the wild west
Read more: Exotic Behaviour: Cultural norms and the wild westExotic behaviour: cultural norms and the wild west. This blog is about exotic behaviour in an archipelago of craggy islands off the west coast of Scotland. Cultural norms and values give us predictability in the outdoor sector. In short, they provide us with expectations, shaping how we think and act as mountain professionals. exotic adjective…
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Avalanche: Does the Accident Route Matrix have a place?
Read more: Avalanche: Does the Accident Route Matrix have a place?Accident Route Matrix Does the Accident Route Matrix (ARM) have a place in understanding avalanche incidents? In this blog we look at systems based incident analysis. These methods look at all the causal factors in incidents far beyond the “who triggered it” strategy of individual decision making. There are lots of tools for assessing the…
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Super Puma G-WNSB
Read more: Super Puma G-WNSBToday marks the tenth anniversary of the loss of Super Puma G-WNSB on the approach to Sumburgh (Shetland) with four fatalities. Although the Mountain Assurance blog is really about the mountains, this tragic incident is important for a couple of reasons. The crew of Rescue Bond One, the industry rescue helicopter based on the Miller…
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Human Factors – Change the person or the context?
Read more: Human Factors – Change the person or the context?Human Factors – Change the person or the context? Procedures that we don’t always follow, even if we should. After incidents and near misses in the outdoors much of the conversation around learning from these events is focused on the performance of the instructor or guide concerned. I recognise that as normal, in that the…
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Swipe Right! – Decision Making in avalanche terrain…
Read more: Swipe Right! – Decision Making in avalanche terrain…Alison shouted AVALANCHE, as the wet slide exited the hidden couloir well above us. The volume seemed to build exponentially until the snow hit the frozen lake below. Breaking the ice, the debris started a tidal wave across the lakes surface. Seconds earlier we had faced a “go or no go” decision. We were fully…
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Latest posts
- Latent Threats: When training bites back
- Threat Managers: Rethinking risk
- Slow is smooth, smooth EQUALS FAST
- Safety by PowerPoint…
- Exotic Behaviour: Cultural norms and the wild west
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