IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
The IAEA Safety Culture
Continuous Improvement Process
(SCCIP)
Making safety culture tangible
IAEA
Content
• Why SCCIP?
• Objectives and outcomes
• SCCIP Process Step-by-step
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
WHY SCCIP?
IAEA
Basis of SCCIP
• Behavioural & social science
• Operational experience
• IAEA Safety Standards
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• Culture is seen as something we can influence, rather than
something we can control
• Culture work needs to encompass the whole organization –
not only as a top-down process
• To effectively assess safety culture, multiple methods must
be used (interview, survey, focus group, observations,
document review) – a survey is not enough
• Edgar Schein’s well established iceberg metaphor helps to
understand and how to continuously improve safety culture
• observe visible aspects (artefacts and behaviour,
“above surface”) and;
• interpret this information to reveal the cultural reasons
behind (found in attitudes, values and basic
assumptions, “below surface”)
• For safety culture improvement, the IAEA emphasises
human interactions (shared space) including trust, mindful
communication, learning attitude, inquiring attitude, self-
accountability, diversity, self-reflection etc.
IAEAs Approach to Safety Culture Continuous
Improvement – the Foundations
IAEA
Lessons from the Fukushima Daiichi Accident –
A Matter of Unchallenged Basic Assumptions
Conclusion of the IAEA Report:
Over time, the stakeholders of the
Japanese nuclear industry developed a
shared basic assumption that plants
were safe
• Led stakeholders to believe that
a nuclear accident would not
happen
• Constrained their ability to
anticipate, prevent and mitigate
the consequences of the
earthquake triggering the
Fukushima Daiichi accident
Behaviour, artefacts
Shared Values, Norms
Shared Basic Assumptions
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Fukushima Daiichi Accident:
Shared Basic Assumptions Across Stakeholders
“We are safe”
Public/government Licensee Regulatory body
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“Individuals and organizations
need to consciously and
continuously question their own
basic assumptions and their
implications on actions that impact
nuclear safety.”
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Public/govern
ment
Licensee Regulatory
body
“Are we safe?”
Fukushima Daiichi Accident:
Lesson Learned
IAEA
Basis for SCCIP in the IAEA Safety Standards
GSR Part 1: National policy and strategy
• Requirement 1: National policy and strategy for safety • 2.3 (g): “The promotion of leadership and management for safety, including safety
culture.”
• Requirement 19: The management system of the
regulatory body • 4.15. The management system of the regulatory body has three purposes: … (3) The
third purpose is to foster and support a safety culture in the regulatory body
through the development and reinforcement of leadership, as well as good attitudes
and behaviour in relation to safety on the part of individuals and teams
• Requirement 29: Graded approach to inspections of
facilities and activities • 4.53. In conducting inspections, the regulatory body shall consider a number of
aspects, including:
• —Management systems
• —Safety culture
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Basis for SCCIP in the IAEA Safety Standards
– DS 456 (Draft GSR Part 2)
Requirement 13: Continuous improvement of safety culture
“All individuals in the organization, from senior management down, shall
demonstrate leadership by promoting safety. A normative framework
based on international best practices shall be described in the
management system to promote and support a strong safety culture”.
Requirement 14: Assessment of leadership and safety culture.
“Senior management shall regularly commission independent
assessments and provide for self-assessments of safety culture and
leadership”.
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
SCCIP OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES
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Organizational capacity building
through enhanced understanding of:
• Safety culture and how to apply safety culture assessments to improve safety
culture;
• How improvement in safety culture can enhance safety performance thorough
positive synergies; and
• Everyone’s roles and responsibilities in cultural work – incl. senior management
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Objectives of SCCIP training
Knowledge and practical skills in
• How to perform safety culture self-
assessments
• How to develop and implement an
effective and sustainable safety culture
improvement programme
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In-house knowledge and practical skills to continuously
improve safety culture through
• Performing high quality safety culture self-assessments
• Identifying and implementing effective safety culture improvement
activities
• Engaging the whole organization
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Outcomes of SCCIP
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Systematic and systemic process
• Systematic:
• Step-by-step support process to train organization on how to
continuously assess and improve safety culture
• Systemic:
• In a strong safety culture, there is knowledge and understanding of
human behaviour mechanisms, and established human factor
principles are applied to ensure positive safety outcomes from the
interactions of individuals–technology–organization.
• This can be achieved by having a team of safety culture
ambassadors in the organization
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Strong safety culture
HTO – embraces the
systemic interactions
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The safety culture self-assessment training is an investment, providing an
internal team of safety culture experts who are competent and confident to
assess safety culture and act as change agents throughout the organization.
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SCCIP – Investing in a strong culture for safety
The experience of implementing SCCIP is that most
of the trained personnel have a technical
educational background with limited focus on
understanding drivers of behaviour, but that after
the first assessment, the team develops sustainable
knowledge of why people and organizations behave
the way they do. In short, they have tapped into the
behavioural and social sciences and are equipped
to proactively catch declines and improve safety
culture continuously.
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
THE SCCIP PROCESS STEP-BY-STEP
IAEA
IAEA Safety Culture Continuous Improvement
Process – Senior management workshop
Senior Management Safety Culture Workshop – 3 DAYS
• Relationship between safety culture and enhanced safety performance
• Role of safety culture assessments for improving safety culture
• Roles and responsibilities of senior management in cultural improvement work
• Competencies and skills needed in team to be trained to perform safety
culture self-assessment (“Safety Culture Ambassadors”, STEP 2) –
supporting senior management in selecting an effective team
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Safety Culture Self Assessment Training – 2 WEEKS (separate) • Train a cross-functional, cross-hierarchical team (“Safety Culture Ambassadors”) to
• Perform high quality safety culture self-assessment applying the established IAEA Safety culture
assessment methodology
• Develop and implement effective safety culture improvement activities
• Training weeks separated – enhances learning output and allows for course reading in between
• Bridging session in the end to ensure alignment between team and senior management
• OUTCOMES: Team of Safety Culture Ambassadors who are equipped with practical tools and
knowledge to perform safety culture assessments
IAEA Safety Culture Continuous
Improvement Process – SCSA Training
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SCSA performed by safety culture ambassador team
• Tailored IAEA support missions to support organization in doing safety
culture self-assessment depending on need of individual organization
• OUTCOMES: Final self-assessment report and Safety Culture Improvement
Program
IAEA Safety Culture Continuous
Improvement Process – Performing SCSA
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Safety Culture Continuous Improvement
• Creation/amendment of safety culture continuous improvement programme
• Implementation of improvement activities
• Periodic safety culture assessments performed by Safety Culture Ambassadors
IAEAs Approach to Safety Culture Continuous
Improvement – Never ending journey
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…
IAEA
• IAEA Safety Standards and IAEA Safety Culture publications
• Social, Organizational and Behavioural sciences
• Past experiences – IAEA and external Safety Culture expert
knowledge and experience of Safety Culture Self Assessment
training approaches and materials
Course material is based on
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Methodology for Training – Learning-by-doing
• Core set of lectures based on the IAEA safety standards and
research/science;
• Illustration of specific examples of theory in application;
• Interactive exercises on how to apply the five data gathering methods
e.g. observations, document review, interviews, questionnaire and focus
groups;
• Performance of a “mini-self-assessment” based on a case study.
Fake data are provided to extract cultural facts, perform descriptive and
normative analyses and communicate the results;
• Fostering of a good shared space and;
• In parallel a process of team-building is facilitated to assure effective
implementation and high quality assessment results.
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
EXPERIENCE SO FAR
IAEA
Implementation of SCCIP
• IAEA full SCCIP support has been provided at
• Kozloduy NPP
• Belgoprocess NV
• Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority (PNRA)
• Laguna Verde NPP
• Senior management safety culture workshops have
been provided to a large number of organizations
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Feedback from participants…
"Safety Culture" was at the start a very abstract and rather new world for me. In a job where you think very rationally it is not common to think about behaviours and habits of people. You just go with the flow. By this course I've learned that by taking some distance and by being neutral you see things different.
Nancy Reusen, Supervisor Production Management, Belgoprocess
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Before participating in this workshop, I was aware of the problem of a weak "Questioning Attitude" in TEPCO and wanted to find a solution to it. Through this workshop, (…) my outlook towards this problem broadened. My attention turned to the lower portion of the iceberg. The importance of conversation was one of the things I realized.
Shinichi Kawamura, General Manager of Nuclear Asset Management Dept., TEPCO
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Feedback from participants…
Before the start of the SCSA project in PNRA, I was just aware about the definition of safety culture which states that safety culture is the assembly of characteristics and attitudes in the organization… but I did not know about the actual meaning of this definition. However after passing through different steps of SCSA project like participation in workshop, collecting data by using five tools (interviews, focus groups, survey, observation, review of documents), participation of descriptive analysis of data by bubble diagram in connection with the underline assumptions (cultural aspects) with the help of the support mission, now I am confident and will be able to conclude some solid, valuable and understandable outcome for further improvement in the organization. Muhammad Sadiq, Directorate of Policies & Procedures, PNRA
IAEA
“[I]t has been a great opportunity to reflect about all the information we got, how to understand culture and go deeper to really understand how the organization is driven. I learned new techniques to do things differently, think outside the box and that I need to listen to my colleagues to have a shared understanding.”
Ariadna Bazan Limón, Independent Unit of Safety Engineering, Laguna Verde
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Feedback from participants…
We finally understood how to influence the culture in the organization and what tools are the most appropriate. I really appreciated the sharing of knowledge by facilitators not only as a SCAMB but also in my personal development. Ricardo Hernandez, Laguna Verde
Every organization has the ability to improve its own safety culture but not many have the tools to implement it. Thank you to the IAEA for sharing their experiences with us and for the providing a new way to achieve high performance.
Dunja Sobeida, Laguna Verde
IAEA
Support material
Document/Material Title
TECDOC Step-by-step Guidelines for Performing SCSA (forthcoming, draft
available)
Compilation Overview of curriculum (Senior Management Workshop and
SCSA Training)
Template Fact database template for performing SCSA
Safety Report Series:
No 83
How to Perform Safety Culture Self-Assessment (forthcoming –
approved draft available)
Safety Report Series How to Continuously Improve Safety Culture (forthcoming)
IAEA
Summary
The IAEA Safety Culture Continuous Improvement
Process provides comprehensive support to
• perform safety culture self- assessments
• develop an effective and sustainable safety culture
improvement programme
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
…Thank you for your attention
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
Appendix 1:
IAEA Safety Culture
Assessment Methodology
IAEA
Prerequisites for Assessment of safety culture
Safety Standard GS-G-3.5
”Safety culture self-assessement should:
• Include the entire organization
• Several different self-assessment tools should be used (e.g. interviews, focus
groups, questionnaires, observations and document reviews)
• A designated team representing all organizational levels and functions at the
installation should carry out the self-assessment
• A specialist in safety culture should be included in the team
• The self-assessment team should receive training
• The self-assessment team should summarize the results and identify areas
for improvement and may suggest actions to be taken
• The results should be reported to the management at an appropriate level
• A follow-up assessment should be performed
The independent assessment of safety culture should follow a similar approach”
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”The independent assessment of safety culture should follow a similar
approach as self-assessment
• The independence and qualification of the members of the
assessment team should be considered crucial for the success of the
assessment
• The team should be staffed with sufficient diversity of experience and
should include specialists in behavioural science, with knowledge of
statistical methods of analysis
• The independent assessment team should aim at identifying
strengths and areas for improvement”
Prerequisites for Assessment of safety culture
GS-G-3.5
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Safety culture – multi-disciplinary expertise
• Anthropology
• Organizational theory
• Social Psychology
• Sociology
• Leadership and management theory
• Cognitive science
• Psychology
• Human Factor Engineering
• Resilience Engineering
• Organizational Factors
• ITO (interaction between Individuals, Technology and Organizations)
• Basic knowledge; Nuclear technology, nuclear organizations, regulatory
framework
Prerequisite for Assessment of safety culture
GS-G-3.5
IAEA
Safety culture assessment methodology
Based on: • IAEA Standards
• Behavioural science
• Knowledge of Organisational Factors
• Application experience
3 Main Pillars: • Use several data collection methods: interview, document review,
observations, questionnaire, focus groups
• Initially, analyse data from each data collection method separately
• Separating descriptive and normative analysis
Monica Haage [email protected]
IAEA
• Using several data collection methods
IAEA Safety Culture Assessment Methodology
PILLAR 1
Interviews
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IAEA Safety Culture Assessment Methodology
PILLAR 2
• Initially, the data from each assessment method is treated separately,
analysis performed in silos –
Survey Interviews
Focus
groups Observations
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Overarching themes: Image(s) of culture
Interview
data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
Survey data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
Focus group
data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
Document
data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
Observation
data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
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NORMATIVE
‘should’ Based on data, a theory of
culture and a norm
DESCRIPTIVE
‘is’
Based on data and a theory of
culture
• Separating descriptive and normative analysis
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IAEA Safety Culture Assessment Methodology
PILLAR 3
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Descriptive/Normative
Descriptive
‘is’
Based on data and a theory
of culture
Normative
‘should’
Based on data, a theory
of culture and a norm
Descriptive must come before the Normative!
• It sets standards for behaviour and
values
• It is related to practices known to lead
to safety
• It focuses on certain limited aspects of
the organization
• Being evaluative in the descriptive stage
can lead to exclusions
• Being descriptive helps to pick up weak
signals
• Being descriptive means having a broad
agenda for dialogue
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Normative,
evaluative analysis
Overarching themes: Image(s) of culture
Interview data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
Survey data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
Focus group
data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
Document
data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
Observation
data
Cultural
expressions
Cultural
themes
IAEA Safety Culture Assessment Methodology
– Analysis Process Overview
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