Behind Human Error, 2nd Edition

13HINDSIGHT BIAS

ATTRIBUTING SYSTEM FAILURES TO PRACTITIONERS

System failures, near failures, and critical incidents are the usual triggers for investigations of human performance. When critical incidents do occur, human error is often seen as a cause of the poor outcome. In fact, large complex systems can be readily identified by the percentage of critical incidents that are considered to have been “caused” by “human error;” the rate for these systems is typically over 70 percent. The repeated finding of about three-quarters of incidents arising from “human error” has built confidence in the notion that there is a human error problem in these domains. Indeed, the belief that fallible humans are responsible for large system failures has led ...