AS-387
Crew Resource Management
Paper Due Date
Abstract
Communication is a two way process which is the most crucial aspect of flight deck performance. A flight situation requires effective communication mechanism wherein the human aspect is taken care of through effective crew resource management training. Communication can be critical to the flight deck situations as it might result in positive or negative outcomes with respect to a potential fatality. Human error is known to be the greatest factor responsible for fatalities in aviation. Communication processes can help minimize and mitigate human errors to a great extent. The present study based on certain assumptions goes on to discuss the various aspects of crew resource management training pertaining to establishing and standardizing the communication processes and evaluates CRM training as a means to develop the communication system for ensuring prevention of aviation fatalities.
Keywords: Communication, fatalities, error, standardize, CRM
Crew Resource Management (CRM) Training as a Means to develop Effective Communication Processes for avoiding Aviation Disasters
Introduction
Communication has long been suggested as an issue of critical importance in all human activities and interaction. Communication is prerequisite for organizational and managerial performance in any field including aviation. For the Safety and security of any flight effective communication is essential as the flight crew needs to convey messages, adhere to instructions and the standards, follow the protocol, do rectifications and course corrections to turn an unfavorable situation into a favorable one. In order for the flight deck crew to perceive, understand and respond to situations in a standard, coordinated and favorable way, they need to be able to communicate effectively. The crew needs to be trained for effective performance on the flight deck and communication is a central concept in CRM Training. The present paper evaluates and demonstrates the importance of the Crew Resource Management training as a means to develop effective communication processes that can help avoid unfavorable situations and even prevent disasters.
Method
The paper, based on a review of relevant literature strives to validate the assumptions as mentioned below. The review findings are presented and discussed in the discussion section and the conclusion section summarizes the findings and finally concludes by validating the assumptions
Assumptions
The paper seeks to validate the following assumption based on review and discussion of relevant literature:
A1: The Inquiry, advocacy and assertion of the best course of action coupled with listening and understanding in the communication loop share a positive relationship with the improvement in flight deck performance
A2: CRM training can be effectively utilized to minimize and mitigate the barriers to communication that interfere in the communication loop
A3: Briefing, debriefing and critique in a flight deck environment helps render better and coordinated performance on flight
A4: Feedback and Verification in an aviation communication process is critical to the success of the latter
Discussion
Inquiry, Advocacy and Assertion with the value of Listening and Understanding in the Communication Loop
Communication process is a closed process which comprises of various stages such as transmission of message by sender, decoding the message by the receiver, activity or improvisation based on the decoded message and finally a message fed back into the system based on the performance as an evaluation of the activity performed. This completes the loop and is a simplistic model of communication however the whole communication system in any field including aviation is based on the above model.
A lack of Effective communication has been found to be the most common cause of disastrous consequences especially under circumstances where the role of human beings is crucial in determining the eventual outcome. Aviation and airline management being such a field, effective communication with all its component factors needs to be taken into account in order to provide for an effective procedural structure to prevent any disastrous consequences.
In order to manage internal as well as external influences on the communication between the airline personnel, effective communication processes need to be developed and taught to them. The personnel need to develop a fair understating and working knowledge of the external factors such as rank, age, gender and organizational culture need to be imparted so as to deal with the problems emerging out of these factors. Importantly, the immediate consequences of the adverse influence of these factors are inadequate standard operating procedures, effect on internal factors such as the speaking skill, listening skills and decision making skills. In order to extract the best outcome of collective decisions, the communication loop must include the personnel such as a pilot inquiring or questioning the actions and decision of other pilot or crew member based on what they perceive and comprehend to be the best course of action in a given situation. This keeps a double check on the thought process and actions of both the crew members and ensures a course correction in time if the process being followed is deviating from standards. However, it is important to understand that though in certain cases, the enquiry itself might prompt the correction without loss of precious time in critical deck situations, others might requires an advocacy of what one member thinks is right and based on a standard operating procedure and within the limits of a protocol advocate and assert his perception of the best possible course of action. Since this advocacy might involve conflict with the other personnel, an assertive communication approach needs to be a part of the training. All the crew members need to be trained primarily in the benefits accruing out of such an approach involving inquiring, advocacy and assertion of what might be the best in the given situation so that when the actual situation arises, such encounters can take place without unnecessary friction and with the requisite and genuine focus on problem solving rather than any ego issues that might arise out of the same.
Communicating effectively requires transmission of messages that are easily comprehensible and thus the communication loop requires the crew or personnel to have effective interpersonal communication skills based on Inquiry, listening, advocacy and assertion. Further, in order to consolidate the above actions the conflict resolution skills and learning how to close the communication loop is also important.
Barriers to Communication on the Modern Flight Deck that interfere with the Communication Loop
Recent events in the history of aviation have shown that a break down in the communication process can lead to not just unfavorable but disastrous consequences. The most crucial communication process that goes on is in the modern flight deck and the cockpit of an airplane. It is important to understand and apply the factors that contribute to the breakdown and hence cause gross errors of omission and commission which lead to great loss of life and property. In order to understand the barriers to communication, the communication loop itself needs to be elaborated in the form of a communication model. Communication especially in cockpit or flight deck situations is a two way process wherein the sender sends a message and the receiver receives and decodes the message. It should be noted that a communication process might be broken due to various factors such as interfering noise, multiple communications, fatigue, stress, ambiguity in words, incomplete message, lack of credibility and rapport etc. The various barriers to communication as particularly applicable to flight deck situations are lack of experience that could facilitate common interpretation of the messages, confusion over the presented and perceived meaning of a message, physiological, physical and environmental interference with the communication process and overuse of words and phrases that convey messages in a more general than specific sense.
As per empirical research conducted on the subject, the language variables that are specific to the given set of communications in a flight deck situation have a medium to high correlation with the individual communication skills. Problems of subordination also contribute to the communication process and too much use of individualistic words leads to degeneration of team communication. Pilot to Pilot communications are fraught with negative outcomes if the communication and that in nearly 70 to 80 percent of all airline accidents in last few years, deficiencies interpersonal communication as a barrier to communication itself have been responsible for accidents.
The communication barriers between the flight crew that interfere with the communication loop are factors such as rank, age and gender. These factors preclude various perceptual and personal biases that contribute to hindrances in the communication process. Additionally the organizational culture which partially is a function of the above factors also acts as a barrier to communication in certain circumstances. Thus avoiding the barriers to communication entails cultivating good listening skills among the crew members on a flight deck.
A comparison of Briefing, Debriefing and Critique in the Flight Crew Environment
As part of the assessment of the communication processes decisional behaviour in the flight deck situation, the flight crew needs to be trained on establishing and maintaining pre and on flight group communication termed as briefing. The training needs to address both the operational and interpersonal issues encountered during the briefings. The briefings by the captain of the flight must focus on affirming and reaffirming the standard operating procedures as a protocol and should be able to address the crucial and pertinent safety and security concerns on flight. A briefing must address situations where an emergency evacuation might become inevitable. The briefing must also highlight how the crew and attendants on flight must respond and function in such situations. It is to be noted that the passengers who are sitting in the rows directly leading to exit are a potentially important resource in such situations and the briefing must convey as to how to prepare them for emergency situations as well establish a continual communication with them.
Apart from this, the briefing must also consist of communication about matters of general security such as hijack situations and any other possible threats to the flight. The flight attendants must be instructed to identify and enrol passengers who seem to be physically fit enough to be used as help in situations that might require the containment of a possible threat caused by a passenger.
It is also important to consider the role of debriefing as a self critique method of post performance feedbacks. The debriefing and self critique procedures must be cultivated as habits among the flight crew through effective training. The aspects that must be covered during such training are the people, the processes and the outcomes involved in the process of effective decision making in flight deck situations. While briefing procedures occur before or during an activity, the debriefing procedures take place after or during an activity at the end of each successive identifiable steps of the activity. Debriefing activities are used as means to reinforce the standards in terms of the human factor practices in the various activities and are crucial for flight deck situations. They highlight the processes that were involved in the activity performed and how the outcomes could have been improved. In addition to what went wrong and what could have been better, the crew members need to be trained to identify the positive or negative behaviour leading to the said outcomes.
Both briefing and debriefing thus are immensely beneficial to elicit the best outcome in a flight deck situation, which is the sole purpose of the CRM training. Prior to every training session conducted the pilot must be aware of the expected outcome of his performance and should be able to ask questions relevant to the possible situation and activity before each training session. It is important to standardize both the briefing and debriefing parts of the training and essentially provide feedback on individual and team performance.
The Necessity of Feedback and Verification in the Communication Process
Feedback and verification is one of the essential components of CRM training along with awareness and reinforcement. Feedback during debriefing sessions is a very effective way for the crew members to asses their skills and knowledge both as individuals and team members. Taped feedback in such cases is indispensable. The positive and negative behaviours of the crewmembers can be thoroughly assessed and thus performance can be improved. Feedback coupled with recurrent practice of the activities to be performed as part of flight deck duties is crucial for better outcomes. This allows participants to practice the improvements in the behaviour and skills and this improves the crew resource management outcomes. Significantly, the feedback obtained is the most effective when it comes from the ones directly involved in the activity such as peers and customers. This critique coupled with the directions from a qualified superior and a facilitator ensures that the greatest effect is achieved in terms of crew performance. It is important to point out that effective feedback is based on certain concepts of coordination and are achieved through recurrent practice and use of training devices such as simulators. Also audio and videotape devices serve to identify the deficient behaviours and reinforce the correct ones. The taped feedback is crucial as it enables the participants of the flight crew to view and weigh their performance from the perspective of a third person. This systematic use of feedback mechanism amounts to the verification of whether the activities performed on the flight deck were in conformity to the standard operating procedures or not.
The feedback and verification process is crucial in the creation of a suitable communication environment and thus enable smooth flow of messages and in an accurate and non redundant manner. The distortion of the messages and information overload is best avoided through feedback and enabled verification process. This helps build a positive and supportive atmosphere where trust based behaviour can thrive and hence chances of errors or contained and minimized to a great extent.
Conclusion
Based on the above detailed discussion about the various aspects of the communication processes as part of the CRM training as means to improve flight deck performance, the observations can be made and further conclusions can be drawn as mentioned below.
The Inquiry, assertion and understating and listening complete the communication loop in any field. Aviation and airline management being such a field, effective communication with all its component factors is crucial. Communicating effectively requires transmission of messages that are easily comprehensible. Also, In order to extract the best outcome of collective decisions, the communication loop must include questioning the actions and decision of other pilot or crew member based on best possible course of action.
Based on the above observations, it can be concluded that Assumption A1 is reasonably valid.
Further, the most crucial communication process that goes on is in the modern flight deck and the cockpit of an airplane as even a small action or decision can be fatal. Communication in flight deck situations is a two way process and avoiding the barriers to communication entails cultivating good listening skills among the crew members on a flight deck. Thus based on the above observations, it can be concluded that A2 is valid
Also, as part of the assessment of the decisional behaviour in the flight deck situation, the flight crew needs to be trained on establishing and maintaining pre and on flight group communication termed as briefing. A briefing must address situations where an emergency evacuation seems inevitable. The debriefing and self critique procedures must be emphasized.
Significantly, it is important to standardize both the briefing and debriefing parts of the training and essentially provide feedback on individual and team performance. Therefore it can be concluded that A3 is reasonably true
Finally, feedback during debriefing sessions is a very effective way for the crew members to asses their skills and knowledge. The positive and negative behaviours of the crewmembers can be thoroughly assessed for improvisation. This systematic use of feedback mechanism entails the verification of performance against standards. The feedback and verification process is crucial in the creation of a suitable communication environment. Thus it can be concluded that Assumption A4 is also valid.
Works Cited
"AC 120-51 E." Advisory Circular: CRM Training. Federal Aviation Administration, US Department of Transportation, 22 January 2004.
Baron, Robert. "Barriers to Effective Communication: Implications for the Cockpit." 2014. http://airlinesafety.com. 14 February 2016 <http://airlinesafety.com/editorials/BarriersToCommunication.htm>.
IPTS. "IPTS-IFALPA Pilot Training Standards Guide for Best Practices." September 2012. www.ifalpa.org. 14 February 2016 <http://www.ifalpa.org/store/IPTS.pdf>.
Konschak, Kolin and Mary Sirois. "Flying Lessons: Crew Resource Management in Healthcare." http://www.divurgent.com. 14 February 2016 <http://divurgent.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/CRMWHITEPAPER.PDF>.
Krivonos, Paul D. "Communication in Aviation Safety: Lessons Learned and Lessons Required." 10 June 2007. asasi.org. 14 February 2016 <http://asasi.org/papers/2007/Communication_in_Aviation_Safety_Paul_Krivonos.pdf>.
