Incompetent And Unaware: We Don't Know What We Don't Know...

[GLOC]

I have just finished two presentations at DEMA, one was a modification of this and the other was a more general post about Human Factors and why it is important to the development and improvement of diving safety. I offered a discount to DEMA attendees and speaking with Elena, she said I should update the article on the front page with the DEMA discount code which I will do once I work out how to edit the article! In the meantime, the code is DEMA2016 and is valid until 21 Nov 2016.

 

[FCuttle]

It reminds me of the Donald Rumsfeld quote:

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

 

[Fransw]

Gloc, thanks, very good article and good to be reminded of this. It is also a big concern in the aviation industry..

 

[MikadoWu]

I know, that I do not know stuff. And correctly, I do not know, what I do not know. The hard part is, "I do not know, what the instructors do not know". After watching over a few friends OW classes, I was surprised by all the difference that are taught, omitted or missing.

I decided last month to take 2 Peak Performance type classes. 1 with a Cave diving instructor and 1 with much older and crusty, but I like him anyways, Ocean diver.

I am hoping to get some different points of very and combined some knowledge.

 

[Per Abich]

I have been doing other sports before that contain a certain element of risk, and I learned that you really need to have a climate where you have a low
threshold for reporting an incident. It needs to be a normal fact of life that you report an incident every now and then.

You were diving during the day and noticed you forgot to connect the battery inside you canister light - even though you had a perfect backup light and would be fine even without a light? Report it. Discovered a leak in your equipment? Report it.

This leads then to a much more safety oriented culture. And you should of course never blame people on the back of reports. Use the reports to find trends, maybe pusblish some of the reports in anonymized form.

The best way to achieve this is by having a easy to use online logbook that has a simple reporting function. It might be a simple as having a field for "What did go wrong?" for private visibility or something that collects the data.

The problem I see in scuba diving is that few people (in my experience) log their dives, especially not online - and there are lots of online logbooks out there who do not do any kind of cooperation.

Maybe some Organization like DAN should offer a API where a online logbook could add a report incident button that sends the dive to a reporting site.

 

[Brian Smith]

A great argument for being an active diver, for continuing your dive education, and for preparing properly for each dive. Even though new divers may have limited skills, hopefully they have good habits to build on. Too many divers get lazy after a time in things like dive planning, predive checks, and the like. Be active, continue your diving education, expand your skills, and there is still more to learn. Isn't diving grand? There is always something new.
DivemasterDennis

I really agree with this comment. We all tend to get caught up in our ways of doing things and we need to continue to force ourselves outside the box.

 

[MichaelWilliams42]

That's a great article. That thinking really does apply to all areas of life. It's important to always remember your weakness so you can take steps to minimize your risks.

 

[peterak]

I must be in the bottom quartile. I can't get the graphics or videos in the article linked to by the OP to show up. They seem to be 404-style missing.

 

[Coldbloodeddivers]

Good read

 

[Pua89]

I have just posted an article entitled "Incompetent and unaware: We don't know what we don't know...". It follows a presentation I gave at TekDiveUSA this weekend and a number of requests to summarise it for those who weren't there as the themes and issues identified are common to all divers, irrespective of age, experience or agency!

Article - Incompetent and Unaware: We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know - ScubaBoard

There are a number of resources posted at the end of the article to help improve diving safety and personal performance, but before any of that can happen, there is a need to recognise our own shortcomings!! This is very hard to do in a reflective manner, and therefore it normally requires external input, be that an honest buddy or teammate or a class specifically designed to challenge your own biases and create new ways of thinking about team and communications; links to the classes I run are at the bottom of the article.

In terms of the classes themselves, I have had some very prominent divers in the industry undertake the class including IANTD ITT Phil Short, IANTD IT Tim Clements, GUE Technical Training Director Rich Walker, GUE IT John Kendall, TDI Director, Training Jon Kieren and TDI Director, Product Development Lauren Kieren and AAUS President Rick Gomez, ITT for SSI XR Cat Braun along with 12 others divers ranging from Divemaster level through to Recreational Instructors who are also commercial training captains. All have said that it is something that should be part of their instructor development programs.

Some links to reviews here and here from this weekend's class.

"I found this course and the content extremely interesting and useful for myself as a diver, as an instructor and instructor trainer, and other areas and activities in my life. I am looking forward to applying and practicing what I have learned, and possibly some day attending a more in depth and advanced course." - Josh Thornton, Sub-Gravity

"I originally signed up for this course with professional development in mind. Little did I know, it would be more of a personal development training program. It is very easy to assume how we will (or how someone else should) preform in adverse situations in an environment we are comfortable in. This training program put the team in an unknown environment (simulated space travel with missions to complete) that no one had experience in to draw from which took us out of our comfort zone, allowing us to see how each of us will preform. This process gave me the feeling of stepping out of my own skin to take a look at myself and my actions from an outside perspective." - Lauren Keiren, TDI​

There is a discount code for the online course for SB'ers which is valid until 31 Jul 16 (not 31 May as per the article) which you will find at the bottom of the article.

If you sign up for the online class, you will have continued access to the materials, even when they are updated (I strive for continual improvement so they will be!). So pay once, get multiple classes.

If you sign up for the classroom-based class, you get the online class free plus a bunch of tangible deliverables which will make your diving safer and more enjoyable.

I will be running at least two classes in September (over the period 15-21 Sep) in the Rhode Island area and likely something in November/December in the Denver area to tie up with some other training planned. I am also planning on running at least two classes around Inner Space 2017. If you sign up to the newsletter here, you will be notified of classes as they are added to the calendar.

Any questions, just ask!

Gareth

Tl;dr