When integrating Human Factors into organisations or projects, it may not be uncommon to experience resistance, alternative views and a prevalence of expectations and presumptions around what people may or may not do, in certain situations.
This is normal, and yes – for Human Factors practitioners, sometimes frustrating!
However, before we progress further note down answers to the following two questions (we will refer to these shortly!)
1. You’re driving your car home; an animal runs out in front of you – what do you do?
2. You’re sitting at a table, and someone on the other side rolls a ball across the table towards you, what do you do?
Many businesses, and indeed people, find simplicity in known or reliable situations – predictable comfort. Take return on invested capital (ROIC) for example – if ‘a’ investment happens, we will get ‘b’ in return. Or technical engineering; if something is designed and implemented from a technological perspective, we will likely know a failure rate, or have defined or expected certainty that a particular engineered solution will or won’t deliver a specific outcome.
The same generally can’t be said for humans, and human performance. Humans vary – obvious right? Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume human performance is variable too, which most of the time – should be seen as a positive. We adapt, mitigate and react to situations in all sorts of ways, and much of this goes un-noticed, as its ‘normal’. However, when things go wrong, we might hear phrases such as ‘just tell them to do it properly’, or ‘they should know better’. However, there’s likely a whole host of reasons as to why people do or don’t do things, in certain situations.
If only it was as simple as ‘telling people to do better’! If that were the case, we’d never burn ourselves cooking, we’d never forget our keys, and we’d never make a spelling mistake in an email.
Sometimes, a human factors professional may be tasked with a problem to solve, or something to explore, or propose change to. When engaging with the issue and moving towards a recommendation or two – the phrase delivered may be less cause in fact; if you do ‘a’ then ‘b’ will occur, but more probabilistic in style – if you do ‘a’ then ‘b’ is more likely to occur (or not). Of course, it is likely that the probabilistic approach will be linked to research, theory or accepted scientific principles and the answer may be less appealing to those who like certainty when it comes to decision making. Or indeed those who like to live in the ‘work as imagined’ world.
Take the questions posed earlier on, for example.
Your answer to the car driving question, may have involved you stating confidently that you would stop. However, the assumption in this case is that you saw the animal, and could actually do something about it. We might ‘want’ to believe that we would stop, but what else may prevent this from happening? Tiredness, distraction, other vehicles? Perhaps the animal ran out, but had successfully crossed the road and posed no threat? Either way, our initial assumption may prove incorrect.
What about the second example? Did you suggest that you would catch the ball? Or maybe stop it from falling? Again – would everyone have acted in this way, each time? What if you were holding a coffee? What if someone else went to stop the ball first?
The point I’m trying to make is people make assumptions about all sorts of things, all the time. When making assumptions about human performance though, I would urge caution – this is where a human factors professional can help to make sense of situations, work processes, environments and procedures.
What assumptions have you made, or heard, about human performance?
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