I am working on a special project at my airline.  As part of the training, we had a review of Threat and Error management.  It is a tool used to improve safety at many airlines.  Here is the really short version…

Threats are those things that we don’t have control over.  These can be environmental, operational, and more; that’s weather, traffic, mechanical problems…

 Errors are just that – things we do wrong.  We can make procedural errors, judgement errors, and more.

 I’m being purposefully vague in my terms because I really think there is a cross-over into other businesses.  Here’s what I mean.  Every business should survey the landscape for possible threats and have a plan for those threats when they do occur.  The business should have a method to identify those threats when they do appear.  Similarly, identification is the key to internal errors.  You have to identify them before you can take action to correct them.

It’s said quite often in the aviation business that no one single item caused an accident, but rather a chain of events.   If any link in the chain could have been broken, the accident could have been prevented.  

So, the take away:  Do you have systems to identify the external threats and the internal errors in your business?  Do you have processes to mitigate the potential threats and errors?