Major engineering projects: governance, risk and scope

Week 3: Strategic risk management process

Accessible version: Socio-technical hexagon

The example you will consider next is the London 2012 Olympic Games. Socio-
technical theory is based on the idea that several elements on a project interconnect
and interact to create complexity (Clegg, 2017, p.4). These elements are:

 people
 technology
 infrastructure
 processes
 goals
 culture.

These elements connect in such a way that changing one necessarily involves a
change elsewhere in the system. In the socio-technical hexagon for the London
Olympics the elements are connected to each other as described below.

Goals

Goals are connected to these factors: buildings/infrastructures, technology and

processes/procedures. They include:

 focussed on security concerns rather than safety concerns

 focussed on achieving an aesthetically pleasing event, at the expense of
operational practicalities
 inappropriate prioritisation of goals.

People

People are connected to these factors: culture, technology and processes/procedures.

They include:

 failure to draw on the expertise of experienced crowd event personnel

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  lack of familiarity with the event environments
 skewed perceptions of risk, with preparations focussed on mitigating high
visibility risks at the relative exclusion of less dramatic, but more probable, risks
 failure to coordinate the perspectives and activities of multiple agencies
 failure to communicate with the appropriate agencies at the appropriate times
 high proportion of temporary, part-time stewards, who are not familiar with
crowd events and are not well trained
 inadequate training and briefing for event personnel
 lack of awareness of the roles and responsibilities of the various agencies and
how they interact.

Buildings/infrastructures

Buildings/infrastructures are connected to these factors: technology and people. They

include:
 inappropriately positioned crowd barriers or amenities
 inappropriately designed event environment – aesthetically pleasing but not
crowd friendly
 unfinished event location/ environment at time of personnel training and system
testing.

Technology

Technology is connected to these factors: culture, processes/procedures and people.

It includes:

 lack of whole systems testing

 over-reliance on technology
 failure of new technology or software systems eg radios, CCTV
 inadequate testing of new technology and software systems.

Culture

Culture is connected to these factors: goals, people, technology and

processes/procedures. It includes:

• failure to learn lessons from previous events

• poor relationships between agencies

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 • failure to identify lessons at the end of each day, which could improve the event
on subsequent days
• pre-occupation with major risks, such as terrorism, at the expense of
considering more unusual, unexpected risks.

Procedures/processes

Procedures/processes are connected to these factors: people,

buildings/infrastructures, technology and culture. It includes:

• lack of coordination across event locations

• failure to consider the knock-on effects of minor incidents
• lack of coordination across event locations
• pre-occupation with major risks, at the expense of considering more probable
minor risks which may combine and cause major problems
• failure to consider the event from a systems-wide perspective
• poor command and control of the overall event, with poor coordination across
all locations
• inadequate planning and preparation
• failure to consider, and plan for, the many different types of crowd, with
different primary purposes, likely to attend such large scale events
• lack of communication and cooperation between agencies
• lack of multi-agency team working.

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