2025 Community of Human and Organizational Learning 31st Annual Conference

Requires pre-conference workshop registration and attendance.  Breakfast counts are submitted based on workshop registrations.

Requires pre-conference workshop registration and attendance.  Breakfast counts are submitted based on workshop registrations.

Have you experienced an unexpected increase in undesired events despite your efforts at implementing HPI tools and HOP concepts?  Are you feeling pressure to go back to “Zero” when life seemed easier?  It’s easy to deviate from the basics that are the foundation for keeping your workforce safe.  This session will look at how to maintain an open and transparent learning organization over time.  We will explore your HOP journey to look for ways to course correct and stay focused on preventing injuries.  Whether you are new to this space or have been doing it for years, this workshop is designed to help you wherever you are on your journey.

Hegel observed: "The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history". This observation is embroidered on the fabric of most near miss and significant event 'learning teams' and causal evaluations that follow the traditional 'interview, review documents, study procedures and processes in order to generate corrective actions that will likely generate future events. And the chain of casualty remains unbroken. During this highly  interactive session, participants will walk through a case study using the Lucas Performance Improvement Model--a self paced, adaptive event evaluation tool that reduces the presence and influence of the five common biases prevalent in the incident 'investigation' and analysis process and focuses learning through the open lens of the one universal human performance principle from which all other generally accepted HOP principles  are derived. Participants will determine the difference between performance and behavior, motivation and ability and the influence of biological realities over psychological tendencies in error-induced events.

When adverse events occur (or nearly occur), a formal investigation and report is desired – and often required.  HOP principles offer a terrific framework for how we effectively work and learn together, but they do not provide a defined, structured process or output. Modern retrospective learning (RCA 2.0?) includes a combination of HOP principles along with just the right amount of structure and support.  Attendees for this course will learn how to facilitate an “organized learning event” incorporating HOP principles along with a step-by-step process for structured retrospective learning.  Attendees receive one-year free subscription to Causelink software.

The DOE HPI/HOP precursor list is much longer than the standard TWIN, which includes the top 8 precursors in each of four categories as of 2009. In this workshop, you will learn how to customize your own TWIN with precursors that are most meaningful to your organization. This customization will allow you to have more accurate data resulting in more meaningful trend analysis that allows management to make data-informed decisions to improve error-provoking conditions that exist before work  begins. You will need your cell phone to actively participate in this workshop, as we walk you through the use of technology using a pairwise approach to customizing your TWIN.

Part I of II
Learn how Human and Organizational Performance and HOP Learning Teams have grown into an overarching Operational Learning mindset. See examples of how Operational Learning can impact investigations, pre and post job reviews, Management of Change (MOC) and design of new processes and product. Learn more about the power of the "voice of the worker."

This interactive session will provide participants the opportunity to experience the practical application of the concepts HOP by:
- Understanding the impact of using HOP concepts
- Recognizing errors, events, deviations, and violations and the difference between them
- Understanding the principles behind performance modes and why people do what they do
- Understanding the TRAPS people fall into that are laid by latent conditions
- Understanding and managing the TRIGGERS that tell us the trap exists so they can deal with it
- Understanding the TOOLS that can be used to avoid or eliminate traps and reduce the probability of error
- Understanding how Supervisors and Managers use the concepts of HOP
- Understanding an effective integration strategy to move the concepts from the classroom to the floor or field environments

Safety comes as a by-product of high-performance. Effective teamwork, leadership and followership are key tenets of high-performing teams. Teams are successful when they understand, communicate and maintain a shared mental model to achieve a common, valued goal. However, teams take time to develop, and many organisations in high-risk domains operate in the context of teaming rather than teamwork. The subtle difference is that teaming is where short-term, ad-hoc groups come together to solve a particular task or problem compared to established teams. Teaming requires trust and psychological safety, both of which are critical to safe operations.

Many organisations do not invest in developing effective teams (including leadership and followership skills), much less the cognitive and interpersonal skills needed to facilitate and support teaming. This full-day workshop with Gareth Lock and Benjamin Goodheart is about you developing, in a psychologically safe environment, in which your personal boundaries will be explored through critical debriefs/reflections. You will find out how you really perform in a dynamic, uncertain, and ambiguous environment when you are under stress. And while there is serious learning to be had, there is no professional jeopardy, so it’s also great fun.

Both Ben and Gareth are experienced facilitators working in high-risk industries to develop excellence in teaming skills. The Johari Window (Open, Hidden, Blind, and Unknown) will be used as the framework to develop your competencies in teaming, and non-technical skills/crew resource management.

You will not have experienced a facilitated workshop like this before. It is where teaming skills come to life, and you will have so many takeaways and resources to help transfer this knowledge to your own workplace, irrespective of role/position.

“I asked for awareness around my personal blind spots, I gained much more.” - ICU Anaesthetist, Vancouver, CA.

“Previously, it took three days of training at the fireground to assess the team’s performance and areas for improvement. We did that in one day using the LAB.” Wildland Incident Commander, USA.

"The course is very introspective - be prepared to feel utterly unravelled but unconditionally supported at the same time!" – Director. Media Company, UK.

This workshop sits firmly in the HOP space: you will make errors, you will help each other learn because you will discover the system is massively flawed through experimentation and reflection, and as a team, you will achieve the goal of shared learning.

How do the safest and most reliable teams in the world build reliability, safety and trust at the same time?

Can we practice classic AND modern approaches to safety & reliability together?

How can we actually apply the best ideas from: Human & Organizational Performance (HOP), High Reliability Organizations (HROs), and Resilience Engineering?

In this interactive workshop, you'll see how pilots, paratroopers, wildland firefighters, and other high-reliability teams across the globe have applied these seven practical steps, and how you can too.

1) Take a Learning-Based Approach
2) Build Psychological Safety
3) Lead After Action Reviews (AARs)
4) Transform Investigations
5) Apply Defenses
6) Improve Systems
7) Build Resilience

You'll learn:
~ 5 key differences between the Control Based and Learning Based approaches to errors
~ 7 core principles, each with a practical step you can apply immediately
~ 3 linked strategies that allow you to blend together: classic defenses, modern process improvements, and advanced approaches to resilience

All Speakers, please check in with the Tech team upon arrival or at least the day before you are scheduled to present.

Conference Presentations: Please bring your actual presentation to the conference on a USB DRIVE (PowerPoint or whatever) and connect with the Tech's upon arrival so that we can assure EVERYTHING RUNS CORRECTLY on our computers and your AV needs are met.

This is a critical step to assure our conference program is executed flawlessly.

To arrange a meet-up, stop by the registration desk, Piazza, or reach out by calling or texting:
JOSH INGERSOLL at 303-919-7984
MIKE INGERSOLL at 720-810-6093

Requires pre-conference workshop registration and attendance.  Lunch counts are submitted based on workshop registrations.

This interactive 4-hour experience will unlock the essential concepts and practices of High-Reliability Organizations (HRO) and Resilience Engineering (RE) making them understandable and useful. Participants will recognize where they are already using them and develop the confidence to integrate them more intentionally into their work.

We will:
Make HRO/RE concepts relatable and relevant
Share powerful questions that will operationalize HRO/ RE
Introduce you to to 2-3 tools you can use immediately
Explore what you need to know for proficiency in practice and no more

You will leave with:
Comfort and confidence talking about the fundamentals of HRO/RE
Initial plan for expanding the application of HRO and RE in your work
Tools and questions to tweak existing practices

Description: No one can predict the future with precision, but most of us agree that it makes good sense to anticipate what might happen so we can plan accordingly.  Failure Modes & Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a formal process that comes from the world of Reliability and has been with us for decades.  And let’s face it – as done historically, it can be pretty mind-numbing and boring!  What a shame - this does absolutely does not have to be the case!  By incorporating HOP principles, streamlining the process, and prioritizing Learning over all else, we can create an optimal learning environment that results in vastly more resilient systems!  Attendees will receive a puppy at the end of the course. (just kidding – but we can all head to the LV Humane Society and pick out puppies if people want after class)

This workshop introduces a practical investigation approach that shifts from a traditional recurrence-prevention mindset to a learning and systemic risk-reduction model. This methodology aligns with High-Reliability Organization (HRO) principles, ensuring investigations drive meaningful improvements.
1. Preoccupation with Failure: Seeking Weak Signals
HROs look for weak signals before they escalate into major incidents. Conventional investigations focus on the immediate event, missing underlying system vulnerabilities.
• Investigations should capture and analyse near misses, deviations, and adaptive behaviours to uncover systemic weaknesses before failures occur.
• Analysis should integrate social and physical sciences to better understand risk and systemic contributors.
2. Reluctance to Simplify: Understanding Systemic Complexity
HROs acknowledge that a single factor rarely causes failure. Investigations must resist oversimplified cause-effect relationships and analyse how multiple systemic factors interact.
• Investigators should assess the organisational context, management systems, resource constraints, and operational realities that shape worker decisions.
• Understanding the interdependencies within an organisation leads to more effective risk-mitigation strategies.
3. Sensitivity to Operations: Learning from the Reality of Work
Safety is dynamic, and work is rarely performed exactly as procedures dictate. Investigations should reveal the gap between “work as imagined” and “work as done.”
• Discovering daily work practices and frontline adaptations provides a richer understanding of operational risk.
• Organizations must develop resilient and flexible systems that account for the variability in real-world work environments.
4. Commitment to Resilience: Designing Risk-Reducing Recommendations
Many recommendations rely on retraining and discipline, which do not reduce systemic risk. HROs build resilience by designing risk controls that are practical, measurable, and effective.
• Investigators should prioritise engineering and system-based controls over administrative solutions to create more robust defences.
• Effective recommendations should address underlying system vulnerabilities and enhance an organisation’s ability to absorb disruptions.
5. Deference to Expertise: Valuing Frontline Insights
HROs empower those closest to the work to inform decisions. Investigations must actively engage workers to understand how they navigate risks in real-time.
• Investigators should co-develop solutions with frontline workers, ensuring recommendations are both practical and impactful.
• Encouraging open reporting and engagement fosters a culture of trust and continuous learning.
6. Transforming Investigation Reports: From Historical Records to Business Cases
Investigation reports often focus on what happened but must evolve into tools that drive meaningful change.
• Reports should present findings as business cases, demonstrating the cost-benefit of systemic improvements.
• Recommendations should include justifications for risk-reduction strategies backed by data and system insights.
This workshop provides the tools to transform workplace investigations into drivers of lasting risk reduction.

Part II  
Learn how Human and Organizational Performance and HOP Learning Teams have grown into an overarching Operational Learning mindset. See examples of how Operational Learning can impact investigations, pre and post job reviews, Management of Change (MOC) and design of new processes and product. Learn more about the power of the "voice of the worker."

An incident happened.
Miscommunication, misunderstanding, or other complex errors were involved.

How do you learn from it to prevent similar events in the future?

~ Simple techniques like the "Five Whys" often fix the blame, but don't fix the problem.
~ Root Cause Analyses (RCAs) are often too complex and expensive.
~ Learning Teams are popular, but have some unique drawbacks, too.

Join us in this half-day workshop to get a practical alternative:
Event Reviews.

Q: What does an Event Review do?
A: It helps reveal low-cost, low-risk high-value process improvements from an incident or event, instead of finding fault.
An Event Review is more effective than the “5-Whys”, more structured than a Learning Team, and far simpler than an RCA.

Q: How can I get more details on Event Reviews?
A: Watch the quick intro video, and download the 2-page summary PDF here —> https://www.reliableorg.com/eventanalysis
CHOL attendees will also get this one-page quick-reference PDF —> https://www.reliableorg.com/event-review-quick-reference-pdf

Q: Are Event Reviews popular?
A: Yes. I recently shared Event Reviews with 1,300+ leaders on a webinar. 160 people gave feedback. 100% found it valuable! See details and quotes here —> https://www.talkadot.com/s/jake709/event-report/84d943fc85a65f40a569d3d828ca57b7 —— Also watch this quick 15-second video to see 250+ ASSP Expo attendees react to my Event Review presentation —> https://vimeo.com/1029754069?share=copy

Part II
This interactive session will provide participants the opportunity to experience the practical application of the concepts HOP by:
- Understanding the impact of using HOP concepts
- Recognizing errors, events, deviations, and violations and the difference between them
- Understanding the principles behind performance modes and why people do what they do
- Understanding the TRAPS people fall into that are laid by latent conditions
- Understanding and managing the TRIGGERS that tell us the trap exists so they can deal with it
- Understanding the TOOLS that can be used to avoid or eliminate traps and reduce the probability of error
- Understanding how Supervisors and Managers use the concepts of HOP
- Understanding an effective integration strategy to move the concepts from the classroom to the floor or field environments

Part II
Safety comes as a by-product of high-performance. Effective teamwork, leadership and followership are key tenets of high-performing teams. Teams are successful when they understand, communicate and maintain a shared mental model to achieve a common, valued goal. However, teams take time to develop, and many organisations in high-risk domains operate in the context of teaming rather than teamwork. The subtle difference is that teaming is where short-term, ad-hoc groups come together to solve a particular task or problem compared to established teams. Teaming requires trust and psychological safety, both of which are critical to safe operations.

Many organisations do not invest in developing effective teams (including leadership and followership skills), much less the cognitive and interpersonal skills needed to facilitate and support teaming. This full-day workshop with Gareth Lock and Benjamin Goodheart is about you developing, in a psychologically safe environment, in which your personal boundaries will be explored through critical debriefs/reflections. You will find out how you really perform in a dynamic, uncertain, and ambiguous environment when you are under stress. And while there is serious learning to be had, there is no professional jeopardy, so it’s also great fun.

Both Ben and Gareth are experienced facilitators working in high-risk industries to develop excellence in teaming skills. The Johari Window (Open, Hidden, Blind, and Unknown) will be used as the framework to develop your competencies in teaming, and non-technical skills/crew resource management.

You will not have experienced a facilitated workshop like this before. It is where teaming skills come to life, and you will have so many takeaways and resources to help transfer this knowledge to your own workplace, irrespective of role/position.

“I asked for awareness around my personal blind spots, I gained much more.” - ICU Anaesthetist, Vancouver, CA.

“Previously, it took three days of training at the fireground to assess the team’s performance and areas for improvement. We did that in one day using the LAB.” Wildland Incident Commander, USA.

"The course is very introspective - be prepared to feel utterly unravelled but unconditionally supported at the same time!" – Director. Media Company, UK.

This workshop sits firmly in the HOP space: you will make errors, you will help each other learn because you will discover the system is massively flawed through experimentation and reflection, and as a team, you will achieve the goal of shared learning.

Combining research drawn from 30 sources, dozens of random controlled tests and in-the-field experience, Estey will facilitate a hands-on, minds-on interactive exploration of specific psychophysiological conditions that influence not only what we learn, but how we learn. Our previous understanding of how attention, retention, memory and emotion play a role in the learning process has been updated by new information from not only from laboratory studies but daily life experiences. We are born to do at least four things biologically--we breath, we eat, we sleep and we learn. Learning is a natural biological function and the way we teach should match the biological realities of this process. We will explore why and how the brain is wired for stories, what role novelty plays in maximizing retention and how to build a presentation or training module that delivers the intended outcome.

We’re excited to welcome you to Columbus with heavy hors d’oeuvres and a no-host bar. Are you attending a workshop on Monday? If so, you will receive a drink ticket in your afternoon sessions.

This is your first opportunity to mingle if you’re a newcomer. Or, to take a newcomer under your wing if you’re a return attendee. Community starts on day 1!

Don't forget to wear your badge. This is a great opportunity for you to register for the conference and meet the Support Team. 

Thank you to our Mixer Sponsors: Magpie Human Systems and the Resiliency Engineering Association.