Train-the-Trainer by DataHomeLab
Concept

Risk management model

The Risk Management Model (RMM) is a compact teaching frame for crew risk work. It pairs risk potential (what can raise risk on this flight or in this scenario) against resources (what the crew can use to manage workload and reduce undetected threats and errors). The only mechanism that turns private assessment into managed risk is communication.

The three golden rules

  1. Communicate
  2. Communicate
  3. Communicate

The triple is deliberate. The failure mode the model is built to defeat is correct private assessment that never reaches the rest of the crew in time for corrective action. That pattern recurs under labels such as poor group decision making, ineffective communication, inadequate leadership, and weak flight-deck management.

How to read the two sides

Risk potential. Name the threats and errors operating now: weather, terrain, traffic, fatigue, system malfunction, time pressure, unfamiliar airport, new crew pairing, MEL constraints. The model does not impose a full taxonomy here; TEM supplies the standard taxonomy. RMM's contribution is forcing the crew to name the items instead of carrying them silently.

Resources. Name what is available: crew experience, automation, time, fuel, ATC, dispatch, weather alternatives, written procedures (FCOM, Quick Reference Handbook (QRH), OEB), cabin crew, company support. Naming resources surfaces under-used capacity and real gaps the crew must plan around.

Risk level is the running comparison of the two sides. When potential rises without a matching rise in resources, a corrective action is owed: brief earlier, divert, slow down, request priority, hand control, escalate, get company support. RMM does not prescribe the action; it forces the question.

Relationship to fuller HF models

RMM is a briefing-slide scaffold, not a full human-factors analysis. The EBT Performance-Influences model (direct, potential, managing-organisation, managing-individual factors) is the higher-resolution diagnostic frame for instructor root-cause work. Mapping:

RMM column Performance-Influences face
Risk potential Potential factors (conditions raising risk)
Resources Managing factors (organisational and individual levers)
Communication rule Conduit from one crew member's direct factors to shared crew action

Swiss-cheese and bow-tie diagrams sit behind the same idea: communication is a defensive layer; barriers nobody mentions do not exist. Use RMM for crew conversation; use Performance-Influences for instructor diagnosis.

Use in facilitation assessment

The facilitation rubric scores, along CRM dimensions, whether the instructor leads crew analysis of the situation, what they did to manage it, and why. Naming the RMM once and then lecturing fails the marker. Never naming RMM while consistently running assess → communicate → identify can still pass. The model scaffolds the conversation; the marker scores the conversation.

Instructor use

  1. Draw the two columns on the whiteboard in LOFT or scenario debrief.
  2. At each turning point: what was the risk potential? What resources were you using? What did you not use? What was or was not communicated?
  3. Keep the crew talking to each other; do not turn RMM into an instructor monologue.
  4. Link named shortfalls to competencies (communication, workload management, problem solving) for EBT grading.
  5. Point crews at TEM language when they need a sharper taxonomy than "stuff got busy."

Connections

Sources