
In aviation there is an important focus on ADM. Aeronautical Decision Making. It is the way to answer a question like, “Is it safe to fly from Santa Monica to Catalina today?” and “Can I put all this stuff in the plane with these people and fly over there for lunch?”
A lot of accidents are the result of incorrect decisions. Not all, because there are some random events, but you can trace accidents back and find a chain of events and decisions that lead from “everything looks fine,” to “oh no.” In case you are curious, ADM is not a science and, from my reading, there is a lot of wiggle room. Making a binary decision like go/no-go for a flight is very complex because you are taking a lot of factors into consideration. But having a framework for what things to consider for a decision and a way to work through the information available to you, a way to be rigorous about making the decision makes a huge difference.
Continue reading