Mitigating Cognitive Biases in Risk Identification: Practitioner Checklist for the Aerospace Sector

Abstract

This research contributes an operational checklist for mitigating cognitive biases in the aerospace sector risk management process. The Risk Identification and Evaluation Bias Reduction Checklist includes steps forgrounding the risk identification and evaluation activities in past project experiences through historical data, and emphasizes the importance of incorporating multiple methods and perspectives to guard against optimism and a singular project instantiation-focused view. The authors developed a survey to elicit subject matter expert judgment on the value of the checklist to support its use in government and industry as a risk management tool. The survey also provided insights on bias mitigation strategies and lessons learned. This checklist addresses the deficiency in the literature in providing operational steps for the practitioner to recognize and implement strategies for bias reduction in risk management in the aerospace sector. //doi.org/10.22594/dau.16-770.25 This article and its accompanying research contribute an operational Risk Identification and Evaluation Bias Reduction Checklist for cognitive bias mitigation in risk management for the aerospace sector. The checklist described herein offers a practical and implementable project management framework to help reduce biases in the aerospace sector and redress the cognitive limitations in the risk identification and analysis process. Detailed discussion focuses on the development of strategies targeted at reducing four cognitive biases and their influence on the risk identification process, and to the development and validation of the practitioner checklist. DOI: https: Background and LiteratureThe authors' research began with a review of the literature, which covered the areas of risk management, cognitive biases, and bias enabling conditions. The biases of optimism, planning fallacy, anchoring, and ambiguity effect were deemed particularly influential to the risk identification and evaluation processes. The authors reviewed and synthesized the bias mitigation literature and developed the initial bias reduction checklist. After the development of the initial checklist, they designed and administered the survey to seek feedback and validation of the checklist as a risk management tool. A Likert-scale instrument was used for the survey, which is an appropriate instrument for measuring attitudes and beliefs. The answers to the open-ended questions of the survey provided insights, lessons learned, as well as other measures that are used by practitioners to reduce biases. The survey design, data collection, and analysis followed the academic literature guidelines for garnering attitudes and feedback on the effectiveness of the checklist as a risk management tool.Nonetheless, the authors recognize that like any of the measurement methods in the science disciplines, the social or attitude survey method is not error-free (Fowler, 2013). The authors incorporated the feedback from both the Likert survey and the open-ended questions into the final checklis...

MINDSPACE and Development of Organizational Culture in Aviation Safety Management

“…The just culture is a primary requirement for SMS to function properly because it provides objective information about root causes for mistakes which aid ongoing efforts to identify hazards and interrupt them. Barriers that prevent the establishment of a just culture will reduce the effectiveness of an aviation SMS (Baybutt, 2016;Bellamy et al, 2018;Darveau & Hannon, 2017;Dekker, 2014;Emmons et al, 2018).…”

“…Human biases at the organizational level were shown in the research to impact SMS effectiveness by impeding the establishment of a just culture (Darveau & Hammond, 2017;Emmons et al, 2018;Ioannou et al, 2017;Jausan et al, 2017;Naevestad et al, 2018). A just culture requires an objective corporate mindset intent on constructing an atmosphere of trust which fosters voluntary error reporting (Darveau & Hammond, 2017).…”

“…Optimism bias creates the illusion that one is at a reduced risk of experiencing and having to deal with the consequences of a negative event, compared to peers. When CEOs and upper level managers are influenced by this bias, they may propagate that invulnerability into the culture planning process, assuming that existing risk identification and management programs are effective "enough" (Emmons et al, 2018). Optimism bias may be strengthened by a clean accident record and result in dangerous complacency.…”

“…Current research has identified human biases as leading obstacles to efficient SMS function (Darveau & Hannon, 2017;Jausan, Silva, & Sabatini, 2017;Liu et al, 2017). Human biases often work contrary to corporate efforts intent on establishing cultures boosting SMS potency (Baybutt, 2016;Bellamy, Chambon, & Guldener, 2018;Derous et al, 2016;Emmons, Mazzuchi, Sarkani, & Larsen, 2018;Gubbins, Harney, Vanderwerff, & Rosseau, 2018). Reducing the overall impact of these biases on the development of organizational safety culture with modern alternatives is the purpose of this paper.…”

“…Research identified four predominant human biases called anchoring bias, optimism bias, planning fallacy bias, and ambiguity bias (Emmons et al, 2018). Given the limitations of traditional strategies to effectively counter human biases, the MINDSPACE alternative system was evaluated to ascertain its potential impact to confront these four biases within the context of organizational decision making specifically related to establishing and maintaining a just culture.…”