Dear MRM Workshop Leaders,

I am pleased to inform you that a new module on Situation Awareness has just been added to the MRM course web. It is a draft version and I would be interested in hearing your views before we make it final. So far only the CBT has been added to the web. The Student Workbook and the WSL Guide material related to this module will be added when the CBT has received acceptance. However, this module is supposed to be conducted at the beginning of the course and I would not mind if you watched and listened to this module together with your course participants already during your next course. The module should work fairly well also without the team discussion questions that you normally find in the Student’s Workbook. The main purpose with the module is to make people understand that situation awareness is critical for correct decisions and actions and that teamwork and efficient use of all resources are the means of establishing and maintaining it. If we succeed with this module, people will better understand what MRM is all about and hopefully be eager to learn more about it. I.e. it should be a good start of the course.

The Situation Awareness module is found at the top of the list of CBT modules on the MRM web.

Next steps
We will shortly start working on an Introduction module. This will deal with the background to resource management training, describe what we mean by ‘human factors’, introduce the new view on human error etc. The next step after that will be expanding the Cultural Awareness module. Today we deal with national culture in the module but we do need to address professional, industry and organizational culture as well. After that, each of the existing modules will be revised and with new modules added, the aim will be to produce a number of “core modules”. The core modules will be the ones considered most important from an incident prevention point of view and these will be required for the MRM certificate. The other modules will be optional and may be more or less relevant depending on your target group. We do not aim at making the course longer, rather the opposite. Instead, we would not mind having people back more often for shorter refresher training.

Speaker (CBT)
The digital voice proved very efficient when the new module was developed. Furthermore, it will be a very quick and easy task to make changes to the CBT script and voice if anyone so requires. I am also pleased to note that the digital voice has been found acceptable in most corners of the world. (See more about the digital voice under next item.)

Individual or group CBT
Those of you who have been involved for a long time running these course may recall that individual CBT was more or less a requirement a few years ago. The reason was that we believed that training would be more effective if each student went through the CBT in his own pace, giving him possibilities to go back and watch/listen again, and make him stay awake by having him to push the ‘next button’ himself. This is still important but it may be outweighed by the benefits of group CBT where you use a computer projector and have the whole group gathered. In group CBT, you may discuss things along the way, answers questions and add own comments. In addition, if you are familiar with the CBT script and don’t like the digital voice, or if you just want a change now and then, just turn off the sound and talk to the slides yourself. The sound may be turned on when you run the slides containing videos. I am personally more fond of this kind of facilitating. Just watch out so you don’t become an ‘instructor’ – telling people what is right and what is wrong. You may avoid this by asking the group a lot of questions. They normally tell you what you had planned to say anyway but it will feel a lot better for the group and increase their motivation and interest in the training.

Web and CD
Our web designer will spend quite some time further developing the MRM web when he is back from vacation in August. You may recall that we have talked about a WSL forum on the web, student password for the web etc. Furthermore, we aim at making the pages with the course material (especially the CBT page) more attractive. The links will be replaced with icons and the whole page will have an appearance similar to a software program (if you see what I mean). The same layout will be used for the CDs. The primary purpose of the CD is to function as a back-up for the CBT modules on the web in case your Internet connection is lost or slow. We aim at distributing the CDs when the Introduction and Situation Awareness modules have received acceptance and when the new layout of CBT modules has been completed by our web designer.

Case studies
Yes, I know – the ones in the MRM course material are old. Still there are hundreds of fresh cases and you will find that virtually all incidents are related to what we talk about in the course. (If they are detailed enough under the cause of incident headline). I have noted that some training providers want shorter cases and some more extensive descriptions. And some use hardly any cases at all. Until we have added more cases on our web, please make your own search and use what you find. We will attend to this matter as soon as time permits. Meanwhile, please feel free to submit information to us about good cases that you have found. Some of you have done so already. Most appreciated.

WSL seminar
Finally, just a reminder about the upcoming WSL meetings. Still preliminary, but please mark 2-3 November for mainland China and 10-11 November for Manila, Philippines. The agenda and information about venues will be announced later. I hope that those of you who reside close to any of these location shall have the opportunity to attend.

I will be on my summer holiday until August 3rd but will check emails occasionally in case there is something urgent. Wishing you all the very best!

Best regards,
Martin Hernqvist
Manager Maritime Resource Management (MRM)
The Swedish Club
Tel: +46 31 638 420 Mobile: +46 706 313 299
martin.hernqvist@swedishclub.com