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OPALs didn’t come from nowhere. The method has serious roots. The Critical Incident Technique was developed by psychologist Paul Fitts in the 1940s — originally applied to battlefield leadership — and formalised by John Flanagan in his influential 1954 paper of the same name. Decades later, the System Safety Development Center (SSDC) in the US adapted it for occupational safety at nuclear sites, renaming it the Reported Significant Observation (RSO) study. I encountered it th

When we show a small group of construction workers a photograph of a real accident, something interesting happens. The conversation that follows is rarely what you’d get from a survey or a toolbox talk. OPALs — Other People’s Accident Lessons — is an experimental approach to workplace safety that my colleague, a retired construction safety inspector with 30 years of experience, and I have been developing and testing on construction sites. The group is typically around a doze

The first step in the OPALs process is to hold a structured discussion with workers on site. Ideally a group of 6-12 workers that know ech other. The OPALs field trial on Merseyside held discussions with groups of groundworkers, all of whom were employed by, or contracted to Quinn Developments NW Ltd. The aim of these discussions was to focus on a risk area familiar to the group, and use an OPALs case, which provides a brief summary of another persons accident. The key featur