The difference between an effective incident investigation and a flawed one can have serious consequences for an organisation, especially for those working in high-risk industries such as Rail, Construction or Oil and Gas. One of the most persistent challenges that can threaten the integrity of an investigation, despite its thoroughness, is investigator bias.
What is Investigator Bias?
Investigator bias is the prejudices, preconceptions or assumptions that investigators can bring into their work. Whether these biases are conscious or unconscious, they influence how evidence is collected or interpreted and as a result affect the conclusions drawn from it.
All investigators are human and therefore susceptible to biases that can skew their perspective. However, recognising investigator bias is the first step in reducing its impact. To fully understand what investigator bias is, we also need to recognise how it manifests.
As one of the most common forms of investigator bias, confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information in a way that confirms existing thoughts. For example, if an investigator approaches an incident with the assumption that operator error was the cause, they may unconsciously focus on evidence that supports this theory, or drive interviews down a certain path, while overlooking contradictory information.
Anchoring bias occurs when investigators rely too heavily on the first piece of information they encounter, known as the ‘anchor’. In incident investigations, early reports or witness statements can create a powerful anchor that influences how subsequent evidence is interpreted, potentially leading investigators down a predetermined path.
This is the tendency to be influenced by the opinion of an authority figure. In organisations with clear hierarchies, this can manifest as investigators giving greater weight to the perspectives of senior managers or technical experts, resulting in the views of non-experts or those with less authority being disregarded.
This bias relates to giving greater importance to recent events or observations. For example, if similar incidents have occurred recently, investigators might be quick to assume the same causal factors must apply.
This is the tendency to judge a decision based on its outcome rather than the quality of the decision at the time it was made. In cases where an incident has led to a catastrophic outcome, investigators can judge the decisions leading up to the incident more harshly compared to the information that was available to decision-makers before the incident occurred.
The Impact of Investigator Bias on Incident Investigations
The consequences of unchecked investigator bias can significantly undermine the effectiveness of incident investigations and their recommendations. It can impact investigations in the following ways:Â
- Compromise evidence collection – this is very relevant to confirmation bias or anchoring bias. Investigators might unconsciously prioritise information that aligns with their pre-existing knowledge or give too much weight to the first piece of evidence they collect.
- Premature conclusions – when being influenced by bias, conclusions can be reached too early before all available evidence has been considered.
- Misdirected focus – bias can cause investigators to focus solely on an individual action or a human error rather than widening their focus to systems and processes within the organisation.
- Missed learning opportunities – when investigations fail to recognise all the evidence or all of the root causes of an incident, the organisation misses out on valuable learning opportunities.
The Value of Diverse Perspectives
A key way to reduce the impact of investigator bias is through the use of diverse perspectives during the investigation. Diversity within an incident investigation team, whether this is in terms of backgrounds, experience, personalities, expertise and perspectives, can serve to balance out individual investigator bias. They are more likely to challenge or question each other’s assumptions, have different perspectives on evidence and therefore a broader range of causes can be considered.
There are specific advantages that a diverse investigation team can offer, such as:
Broader Technical Expertise
A diverse team that includes investigators with different expertise, such as operations, maintenance, health and safety, and other subject matter experts, can be effective for specific roles or tasks as they can pull from any relevant knowledge. Care has to be taken not to focus too much on any one specific area of expertise, however.
As such, a room full of technical experts isn’t always needed or even desired throughout an entire investigation. Through the development of digital tools and conferencing, experts are easily contactable for specific questions when needed. In fact, non-experts in a team can often bring a more open mindset to the investigation process, allowing for objectivity and thinking ‘outside the box’.
Therefore, creating a diverse team that includes non-experts is beneficial, but achieving the right balance of expertise requires strong leadership and an environment of psychological safety, where open communication and contribution is encouraged.
Different Organisational Views
Teams that include members from both different levels and different departments ensure that the organisation as a whole is considered. It also reduces the risk of authority bias and encourages a strong safety culture.
Large companies often bring in people from different countries to give an independent perspective to an investigation. At Kelvin TOP-SET, we often help facilitate major events for companies in order to keep operations neutral and independent.
Apart from differing expertise or authority levels, differences in how people think and approach problems is vital for incident investigations and for reducing investigator bias. In this case, teams are more likely to consider multiple explanations rather than heading down one path. In our Senior Investigator Course, we look at personality styles and how they can impact bias both as an investigator and a team leader.
In global operations, an awareness of cultural factors can help to identify how cultural norms, communication techniques or relationships could have contributed to an incident.
Counteracting Bias Through Diversity
As well as advising on the formation of diverse teams, we use specific tools and techniques on our training courses that help to further counter these investigator biases. For example, the TOP-SET Indicators are extremely effective in helping investigators to stay open-minded during the investigation process and consider all possibilities. In addition to this, our structured process plays a unique and key role in keeping investigators on track whilst ensuring they don’t deviate from the focus of the investigation or rush to conclusions too quickly.
Get in touch to find out more about how our approach, planning framework and tools set us apart by helping to expose, balance and counteract investigator bias.
