Experience Feedback

Abstract

AbstractExperience feedback is the process by which information on the results of an activity is fed back to decision makers as new input to modify and improve subsequent activities. The main source of experience used in risk assessments is historic industrial systems. The experience emanates from incidents, failures, and normal operation, as well as from earlier risk assessments. Laboratory and field experiments provide complementary experience. Experience‐based knowledge from these activities is directed to the risk assessment team through different channels. The article distinguishes between channels for transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge. Experience databases and experience carriers play an important role in the first case, where experience carriers represent a higher degree of synthesis. If properly designed, the risk assessment team will constitute an arena for tacit knowledge exchange between risk analysts, personnel with operational experience, and systems designers. The article describes the processes for update of experience databases and experience carriers with new information. The need for documenting the experience basis in the risk assessment report is highlighted. An example from environmental risk assessments illustrates how experience feedback is achieved in practice.