Seeing the Invisible: Discovering Operations Expertise
summary
Argues that expertise comes from studying everyday successful work rather than failures, based on a Lund University human factors master’s project and field methods (ethnography, incident transcripts, NASA Mission Control studies). Finds teams succeed far more often than they fail, use heuristics and trade‑offs to diagnose issues, and that automation has unintended consequences that humans routinely patch. Calls for more real‑world research, replicable methods, and shares a master’s thesis as concrete evidence and practical direction.
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chapters (7)
- 0:00Start
- 2:10What makes them good?
- 5:09Understanding Normal Work
- 8:53(Some of) What I've Learned
- 10:01Automation Surprises (there is no free lunch!)
- 13:50What is needed for the design of systems that prevents or limits catastrophic failure?
- 14:18When our preventative designs fail us, how do teams of engineers successfully resolve those catastrophes?
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