DP Mini Guide: Human Factors — Why Competent People Make the Wrong Call

Crew Connect DP Academy · Mini Guide 15

Human Factors — Why Competent People Make the Wrong Call

Topic: DP Watchkeeping · Sub-topic: Human Factors  ·  Level: DPO / Senior DPO  ·  Read time: 9 min

1. What / Why / How

A senior DPO who has run the same routine operation dozens of times without incident may skip a check that would normally warrant a look — not through carelessness, but through normalisation of deviance combined with experience bias. Repeated exposure without incident can quietly erode the standard of vigilance applied to a genuine anomaly.

2. Recognition / Risk / But

The real risk isn't a knowledge gap — it's that an experienced DPO's confidence can make a skipped check less visible and harder to challenge than an obvious gap would be. But: this pattern is genuinely difficult to self-correct by simply “deciding to be more careful,” because the erosion happens gradually, reinforced by a track record of nothing going wrong.

3. Now / What next / Decision / Why

Correcting it requires either an external prompt (a colleague, a structured habit, a deliberate routine) or genuine self-awareness. A junior colleague noticing something wasn't checked needs a working environment where raising a technical observation is expected and welcomed, regardless of relative seniority.

4. Consequence / Reassess / Escalate

How the senior DPO responds to being questioned — not the junior's initial hesitation — is what actually determines whether challenge culture is real or just a policy on paper. Genuinely acknowledging the check was worth doing, regardless of outcome, reinforces that the behaviour of checking is valued independent of any single result.

5. Recover / Verify / Human factor

This connects directly to the “alarm cleared ≠ recovered” trap elsewhere in DP Academy: both are examples of accepting a comfortable-feeling signal — confidence, or a cleared alarm — as equivalent to genuine verification. Trap: assuming experience and confidence are, by themselves, a reliable substitute for structured verification.

Sources: MTS DP Committee PDDP2 (behavioural/self-assessment guidance), IMCA M117 Rev.3.3, IMO MSC.1/Circ.1580. This guide is educational content, not a substitute for accredited DP training, vessel-specific FMEA/ASOG, or full-mission simulator assessment. Crew Connect never infers compliance with a specific vessel's applicable requirements — always verify against your own approved documents.