Key Steps in Writing Recommendations
It's important to write effective recommendations so that the decision-maker has enough information to make a good decision.
To speed up the process and to improve the approval rate, you must learn to anticipate the questions that the decision-maker will ask in order to sign off on the requested change. This being the case, the more pertinent information you can include in the presentation, the more likely the recommendation will be approved. Remember, the primary purpose of a recommendation is to persuade.
To develop effective recommendations, perform the following key steps:
1. Write the Problem Statement
Based on the work you did in the problem-solving phase, you should be able to write a clear statement of the problem. The decision-maker must be able to clearly understand exactly what the problem is. Be sure you describe:
- Surface causes: Are there hazardous conditions and related unsafe behaviors that have directly or indirectly caused an accident? Hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors also represent the final outputs or effects of a safety management system (SMS) that may have somehow failed.
- Root causes: Are the inadequate or missing system elements such as resources, programs, plans, policies, processes, procedures, rules that contribute to the hazardous conditions and unsafe behaviors? These point to even deeper root causes in safety management system structure, design and development. Examples of problem statements:
- Condition: "Five ladders in the warehouse are defective."
- Behavior: "Most employees at the worksite are not reporting injuries to supervisors."
- System: "The safety training plan does not include lockout/tagout training."
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
7-2. Which represent failures in the design, development, and deployment of the safety management system?
You forgot to answer the question!