"[With FRAM] the traditional cause–effect relation can be replaced by a resonance relation." #readingToday

Given that any risk assessment must involve an efficiency-thoroughness trade-off, the question becomes how the ETTO principle can be used to provide a better understanding of risks. In other words, we need to know better how human and organisational performance is adjusted to the conditions, and to use that understanding to predict what may happen in the future. More concretely, we need to develop methods that make it possible to account for failures that are emergent rather than the result of cause–effect relations. One such method is the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) already mentioned in the sources of Chapter 6. This method is based on four principles: (1) that successes and failures have the same underlying explanations, (2) that performance adjustments are ubiquitous and approximate, (3) that consequences are emergent rather than resultant, and (4) that the traditional cause–effect relation can be replaced by a resonance relation. The first three principles are consistent with the ETTO principle and have been mentioned several times in the previous chapters. The fourth principle explains the spreading of consequences through tight couplings as a dynamic phenomenon, rather than as a simple combination of causal links.

The ETTO Principle, Erik Hollnagel