Contributed by Brian Moores, P.E., Senior Project Engineer, and Andrew Gohl, Senior Project Manager, POWER Engineers
Most folks in engineering get a little queasy when they imagine presenting before a live audience. Though engineers enjoy sharing their knowledge, there just isn’t much vocational crossover between engineers and standup comedians, given their different personalities.
But when we stepped up on the platform at DISTRIBUTECH International last month, we were comfortable. We were also grateful for the opportunity to present information that we deliver several times a year to POWER employees with a wider audience. Our topic, human performance improvement (HPI), is in our blood. The positive impact to safety, quality, schedule, and budget that HPI principles have made on our projects has made us true believers.
What is HPI?
The field of HPI (and generations of hard experience) tells us that we are fallible. We are prone to make errors while undertaking tasks simple and complex. HPI helps us predict when errors are more likely to occur by recognizing error precursors and applying necessary defenses to proactively manage situations and prevent the occurrence of error.
Within the philosophy of HPI is a collection of tools we employ to help us proactively manage the recognized error precursors. In addition, continuous learning from both successes and failures drives continuous improvement at both the personal and organizational levels. This means delivering better project outcomes with fewer incidents, safer personnel, and more successful, minimally complicated energizations.
These improvements in safety, quality, and accuracy at the design stage or in the field translate into bottom-line benefits to asset owners and operators. For every incident that does not occur, for every design failure that doesn’t leave the office, and for every construction error that never happens, there are valuable increases in uptime, driving productivity and lowering cost to the owner.
What HPI is not
HPI is not solely a field service discipline. To have its highest impact, HPI must inform and shape every aspect of decision-making at the individual and organizational level. We learn by asking questions such as:
- How do we select, budget, schedule, staff and equip our projects?
- How do we train our teams to perform today’s work safely and with high quality?
- How do leaders up and down the organization support individuals or teams when work does not go as planned? How much different is that treatment when the work goes poorly as compared to when the work goes well?
- How do we receive questions, suggestions, and requests for help?
- How do we share the lessons learned from desirable and undesirable project outcomes with the whole organization?
- Do our behaviors in the moment agree with the words we use when we state our values? Are we walking the talk?
- Do we share how tools and processes used throughout the organization fit into our vision of HPI overall?
Where do you start HPI?
We gathered from the questions asked at our presentation and from discussions we had with attendees at our booth that many people appreciate HPI philosophy but hadn’t yet established it as a practice. So where does an organization begin implementing HPI?
Based upon our eight-year HPI practice at POWER, we teach that while tactics, checklists and procedures are essential to any HPI program, organizations must first adopt an organizational HPI mindset.
An HPI mindset is the cognitive process of intentionally and non-judgmentally identifying key risks that need to be mitigated. The HPI mindset also includes understanding the value of HPI, why it’s important, and why it’s not just a “thing to do.” Best-case scenario: when the organization is encouraging, invests in continuous learning, and supports responsible decision-making, HPI principles become part of the company culture.
Five fundamentals of HPI
HPI practices are most effective when adopted widely—a reality that the US Department of Energy noted in their five fundamental principles of human performance improvement, paraphrased below:
1. People are fallible. Even the best people make mistakes.
2. Situations where errors are likely can be predicted, managed, and prevented.
3. Individual behavior is influenced by organizational processes and values.
4. People perform well when they are encouraged and reinforced.
5. We need to learn from our mistakes.
Culture that encourages initiative and growth
A courageous and highly motivated individual can develop a personal HPI practice without support from their organization, but fully realizing HPI benefits requires buy-in from all organizational levels.
To effectively use HPI tools, individuals, teams and the organizations they serve must develop a risk detection mindset. These risks could pertain to safety, technical matters, or commercial issues. When risk is detected, individual courage to act and a culture that encourages action is necessary. This is the heart of HPI: embodying initiative to mitigate risks by properly deploying our HPI tools. The people within the organization learn, share, and implement those lessons to continuously improve.
Since organizational culture influences everyone, it’s fair to say that organizational mindset has a broader influence than individual mindset. We believe that every person comes to work to do a good job and does not intentionally commit errors that result in a workplace injury, undesired event, or quality bust. After an error does occur, we need to ask how the organization contributed to the circumstances leading to it, and then take steps to resolve those organizational weaknesses.
Next steps
Regardless of when an organization begins its HPI journey, it is never complete. As we shared with the DISTRIBUTECH audience, at POWER we’re still asking tough questions, exposing truths, and creating systems that close the gaps we uncover. We are still learning how to use our tools and taking the initiative to enact further improvements. The benefits to our safety, technical performance, and commercial and design quality that result from our HPI culture keep us on the path. As we create more champions to reinforce and extend the HPI culture at POWER, we look forward to sharing with our industry in the future.
About the Authors
Brian Moores, P.E., is a senior project engineer for POWER Testing and Energization (PTE), where he leads and directs a diverse staff of power industry testing and commissioning professionals. Brian also supports PTE’s safety and human performance improvement programs, tools and standards development, data collection and analysis, and employee training and development. Brian has over 23 years of power industry experience including substation protection and control design, testing and commissioning, safety and human performance improvement, and training development and delivery.
Andrew Gohl is a senior project manager for POWER Engineers, Inc. where he leads a talented team of project managers who are responsible for managing all aspects of electrical commissioning, preventative maintenance, and startup plans for distribution, transmission and generation projects. Andrew has a background in personnel leadership and human performance improvement as well as more than 20 years of project management and hands-on experience in the testing and commissioning industry.
