Using FRAM beyond safety: a case study to explore how sociotechnical systems can flourish or stall

Furniss, Dominic; Curzon, Paul; Blandford, Ann

doi:10.1080/1463922x.2016.1155238

Cited by 32 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(37 reference statements)

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“…Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) (Hollnagel 2012) was used to analyse interview data (Furniss, Curzon, and Blandford 2016). This built on qualitative data analysis that was conducted as the interviews progressed .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The detailed steps that we went through to apply FRAM are documented in Furniss, Curzon and Blandford (2016). The contribution of that paper is methodological, i.e.…”

Section: Overview Of the Six Integrated Areas Of Competencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This resulted in six interrelated areas of competence described below. Key methodological points to note for the application of FRAM in this context, which are expanded upon in Furniss, Curzon and Blandford (2016), include the following:…”

Section: Overview Of the Six Integrated Areas Of Competencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…FRAM's initial notion of performance variability was focused on how functions interacted to compromise safety (Hollnagel 2004), so it had to be adapted to focus more positively on how functions resonate to make systems work well (Furniss, Blandford, and Curzon 2007;Furniss, Curzon, and Blandford 2016). FRAM has since been proposed as a method to study normal performance variability (Hollnagel 2012), but studies implementing FRAM for system effectiveness and how systems flourish are rare (Furniss, Curzon, and Blandford 2016).…”

Section: Using Fram Outside Systems Safetymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead, the goal was to describe a set of conditions (potential competences in this case) that could play out in complex, situated and sometimes unanticipated ways that influence whether the HFE/UX project work stalls or flourishes (Furniss, Curzon, and Blandford 2016). Essentially, the organisation's competences impact how it responds to different scenarios.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring organisational competences in Human Factors and UX project work: managing careers, project tactics and organisational strategy

2017

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Organisational competence in Human Factors and UX (user experience) has not been looked at before despite its relevance to project success. We define organisational competence as the collective competence of the individuals, bringing together their complementary abilities to deliver an outcome that is typically more than the sum of its parts. Twenty-two UX and Human Factors practitioners were interviewed about their project work in two contrasting domains: web design and safety-critical systems to explore organisational competences. Through doing a FRAM analysis, 29 functions and 6 main areas of competences were identified: the central project process; the process of learning about the problem; maintaining and developing client relations; staff development; evolving practices; and the management of documentation for audit and quality control. These dynamic and situated competences form a web of interactions. Managing competences is essential for project success. Implications for managing careers, project tactics and organisational strategy are discussed.Practitioner Summary: Organisational competences impact how routine and non-routine project work is performed, but these have received little attention in the literature. Six key areas of competences in Human Factors and UX project work were identified from practitioner interviews. Managing combinations of adaptive competences is important for developing careers, project tactics and organisational strategies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The detailed steps that we went through to apply FRAM are documented in Furniss, Curzon and Blandford (2016). The contribution of that paper is methodological, i.e.…”

Section: Overview Of the Six Integrated Areas Of Competencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Overview Of the Six Integrated Areas Of Competencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Using Fram Outside Systems Safetymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring organisational competences in Human Factors and UX project work: managing careers, project tactics and organisational strategy

2017

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Modeling complex socio‐technical systems using the FRAM: A literature review

Salehi

Veitch

Smith

2020

Hum Ftrs & Erg Mfg Svc

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This is a review paper of studies that have employed the functional resonance analysis method (FRAM). FRAM is a relatively new systemic method for modeling and analyzing complex socio-technical systems. This review aims to address the following research questions: (a) Why is FRAM used? (b) To what domains has FRAM been applied? (c) What are the appropriate data collection approaches in practice? (d) What are the deficiencies of FRAM? A review of 52 FRAM-related studies published between 2010 and 2020 revealed that FRAM-based models can be used as a basis for improving safety management, accident/incident investigation, hazard identification/risk management, and complexity management in complex socio-technical systems. The outcomes also showed that healthcare was the most common domain that employed FRAM (31% of the investigated studies). The results of exploring data collection methods indicated a mixed method (interview, focus group, observation) was employed in 52% of the analyzed studies, and the accident investigation report was the most popular approach in aviation-related studies. An investigation of the deficiencies of the FRAM showed that it should be upgraded by exploiting supplementary methods to enhance its analytical and computational capacity to help risk analysts and safety managers in complex socio-technical systems. K E Y W O R D S accident investigation, complex socio-technical systems, complexity management, functional resonance analysis method (FRAM), hazard identification, safety management 1 | INTRODUCTION 1.1 | Background Complex socio-technical systems consist of some subsystems and subactivities linked in known or unknown ways (Hollnagel, 2012a, 2012b). Examples of socio-technical systems include healthcare, aviation, manufacturing, power industry, and automotive (Soliman & Saurin, 2017). They are inherently complex, nonlinear, uncertain, and dynamic (Jensen & Aven, 2018). Complex relationships between humans and their environments, including technologies and organizations, show that safety is not a linear and straightforward process in such systems (Grant et al., 2018). In the Safety-I perspective, the focus is on reducing adverse outcomes, such as accidents, incidents, and near misses (Hollnagel, 2018). The core idea of the established techniques for analyzing risks and accidents in the Safety-I approach is based on event chains: unexpected outcomes and potential accidents cannot be anticipated by considering event chains or possible

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Towards Holistic Functional Task Analysis

Salehi,

Salmon,

Burns

et al. 2024

Hum Ftrs & Erg Mfg Svc

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Task analysis (TA) can contribute to work systems design, accident investigation, risk assessment, human error identification, planning, and training. Despite the advantages of existing sequential and hierarchical methods, they decompose tasks into their structure and focus on the order in which tasks are accomplished. They do not trace all interactions among elements/subtasks/operations at different levels. As the complexity of tasks increases, not keeping track of all interactions may result in poor, unwanted outcomes. This research introduces a different approach to TA that decomposes tasks into their constituent functions, describes the functionality of the overall work system, traces (dynamic nonlinear) interactions among functions, and highlights the role of functional variability in forming emergent outcomes. This approach to TA is called functional task analysis (FTA). A case study on nursing work was used to demonstrate the suitability of the FTA approach. The findings of this study show that the FTA approach contributes to task modeling by building a nonsequential, nonhierarchical functional model of a complex task considering dynamic, nonlinear interactions among functions. The FTA also contributes to task description by explaining different ways a task can be accomplished. It also increases the understanding, interpretation, and analysis of how changes in work conditions shape good/acceptable and poor/unacceptable outcomes. The FTA can complement the TA by adding some aspects, including functionality, nonlinearity, dynamics, and emergence, that the TA does not normally consider. The findings highlight how the functional approach to TA can be deployed as an alternative (or complement) to other task analysis methods.

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Using FRAM beyond safety: a case study to explore how sociotechnical systems can flourish or stall

Cited by 32 publications

References 23 publications

Exploring organisational competences in Human Factors and UX project work: managing careers, project tactics and organisational strategy

Exploring organisational competences in Human Factors and UX project work: managing careers, project tactics and organisational strategy

Modeling complex socio‐technical systems using the FRAM: A literature review

Towards Holistic Functional Task Analysis

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