Human Factors in interdisciplinary teams

Petra Badke-Schaub, Delft, The Netherlands
Gesine Hofinger, Bamberg, Germany

This workshop focuses on Human Factors in teams working in high-hazard industries. The emphasis lies on motivational, cognitive and emotional aspects of human behavior. Although the workshop specifically addresses experts from high-risks industries interested guests and students with different background are also welcome.
The workshop is divided in four parts.
In the first part short presentations provide the theoretical background. Characteristics and requirements of interdisciplinary team work are introduced. Important theoretical concepts which are supposed to influence team work in a successful way, such as ‘shared mental models’ will be discussed.
In the second part a case study will be presented which exemplifies the interrelatedness of the explained variables and their impact on safety.
In the third part the group will be divided into small groups consisting of participants of different high-hazard environments. These small groups exchange experience about the safety concept of the own company. Issues to be addressed are how the organization deals with team failures, what kind of means have been developed in the organization so far and how is the acceptance of the people involved. Especially, the question in how far team resources are also part of the ‘safety program’ should be addressed. On the basis of the current status the needs for the next 20 years should be derived.
In the forth part the small groups present the results of their discussions in the whole group what will help to understand the relevance of Human Factors for team work but also provide different concepts of different environments and hopefully transferable benefits.