Crew Resource Management

ATPL Ground School

Royhle Flight Training Academy

Crew Resource Management in
Nutshell.
 CRM- Transition from Cockpit Resource
Management to Crew Resource Management
• The application of concept of team management
in cockpit environment was initially called as
Cockpit resource management (CRM).
• CRM training program is not only, restricted to
flight deck crew, but it also includes cabin crew,
maintenance personnel and others, therefore
Crew Resource Management has replaced the
term Cockpit Resource Management
Defining- Crew Resource Management
• Crew Resource Management, hence refers to
effective use of all available human resources,
hardware and information. Hence human
players of CRM involves
• Flight Deck Crew
• Flight Attendant
• Maintenance Personnel
• ATC
 CRM- Expanding its horizon of
Application
• Initially importance of CRM was only limited to the
aviation community and the airlines in particular,
however with the span of time CRM is expanding its
sphere of application and has been adopted in other
fields also, for example
• Medicine- Crisis Resource Management
• Railways
• Offshore oil refineries
• Nuclear Reactor Plant etc.
Note : CRM has its implication in Civil as well Military
Aviation also.
 CRM Training
• CRM training has been defined as a collection
of “instructional strategies designed to
improve teamwork in the cockpit by applying
well-tested training tools (e.g. performance
measures, exercises, feedback mechanisms)
and also appropriate training methods
(including simulators, lectures, videos)
addressing specific content (i.e. teamwork,
knowledge, skills and attitudes)
 Importance of CRM Training
• According to prevailing view of the experts of air
accidents and incidences root cause for the errors
frequently occurs, flight crews fail to effectively
manage the resources available to them,
• Other causes of error include fatigue, workload,
fear, cognitive overload, poor interpersonal skill,
communication, imperfect information
processing, and compromised decision making.
• CRM training deals with all these factors to make
effective and efficient utilization of available
resources towards safe flight operations.
 Evolution of CRM Training
• 1st generation: Mainly involves a program to correct for lack of
assertiveness of junior officer and also pilot authoritarianism.
• 2nd generation: It was more team-oriented program including
training on decision-making.
• 3rd generation: It recognized human factors issues for instance
stress and situational awareness, and also led to extension of
training to other teams in the airlines such as flight attendants, air
traffic controllers, and maintenance personnel
• 4th generation: CRM program of this generation was more on
customization by individual airlines to comply with FAA mandates
regarding CRM training.
• 5th generation: It restored emphasis upon management of error
and safety
• 6th generation: Identification/prevention of threats to safety at the
initial possible time and management of error.
 Seven Critical Skills of Crew Resource
Management

• Decision Making
• Assertiveness
• Mission Analysis
• Communication
• Leadership
• Adaptability/flexibility
• Situational Awareness
 Decision Making

• Decision Making is defined as the skill of selecting a

particular course of action using logical and sound
judgment based upon the available information
• Teamwork including crew coordination and communication
are considered key factors of good decision making applied
to team-related tasks
• Variables required in the decision-making process include,
but are not limited to
- level of uncertainty
- Experience
- time
- risk assessment and management.
 Assertiveness
• Assertiveness entails expressing one’s feelings,
concerns, or ideas with a clear and direct
approach.
• Aircraft accidents have been attributed to lack of
assertiveness, where voice data recorder tapes
indicated a co-pilot’s reluctance to question a
decision made by the captain
• Assertiveness is applied as both an attitude and a
skill, requiring both initiative and courage to act .
 Mission Analysis
• Mission analysis is centered on the ability to
make short-term, long-term, and contingency
plans.
• Teaching the concept of mission analysis in
CRM focuses on ways to understand how to
coordinate, allocate and monitor crew and
available aircraft resources
Communication
 Communication (Cont.)
• Communication establishes the foundation for
the other CRM skills and is an important
component leading to successful mission
accomplishment in aircrew coordination
• Effective communication is comprised of four
basic elements
- Clarity
- Accuracy
- Timeliness
- Usefulness.
 Communication (Cont.)
• The types of communication within a flight crew
can be verbal, non-verbal, gestures, written, or
simple voice inflections.
• communication can be affected by age, gender,
rank, culture, attitude, and task or workload.
• In multi-cultural crew, strong cross-cultural
difference exists in areas of communication and
team work
• Research has shown that a breakdown in
communication in aircrews has been linked to
causal factors in many aviation mishaps.
Leadership
 Leadership (Cont.)
• Leadership is taught in aviation as the ability
to direct and coordinate the activities of
crewmembers; encouraging the crewmembers
to work together as a team.
• CRM identifies two distinct types of leadership
styles
-Designated Leadership.
- Functional Leadership.
 Leadership (Cont.)
• A designated leader is someone who
possesses the responsibility to make final
decisions
• In contrast, a functional leader arises when
the time for leadership is needed or required.
Functional leadership is typically a result of
prior experience and knowledge.
 Leadership (Cont.)
• Autocratic Vs Democratic Leadership
• Traditions of autocratic leadership, excessive
individualism, can negatively affect the CRM.
• Democratic Leadership promotes the freedom
of expression and has positive effect on CRM.
 Adaptability/Flexibility
• Adaptability and/or flexibility describe the
ability to alter a course of action when new
information becomes available.
• Many situations in aviation arise where a
deviation of a particular task is warranted.
Emergencies are a prime example of the need
for adaptability.
• Adaptability also is related to leadership in
dynamic environments like aviation.
 Situational Awareness
• It is “the perception of the elements in the
environment within a volume of time and space,
the comprehension of their meaning and the
projection of their status in the near future
• It is a cognitive skill based in perception and
attention.
• Research has shown that in a large number of
commercial aviation accidents attributed to
human error, problems with situational
awareness played a significant role
Factors Affecting Individual Perception of CRM.

• Emotional Climate.
• Stress.
• Fatigue.
• Incapacitation.
 Emotional Climate
• The term ‘emotional climate’ can be defined as the way
that the people in the team feel about themselves and also
about each other during flight .
• Factors that have been established to affect the emotional
climate of a team are
-perceptions of safety
-clarity of job
-task expectations
-supportive communication
-participation and involvement
-recognition for contribution
- freedom of expression.
 Stress
• Stress normally outcome of perceived gap
between the demands of a situation and an
individual’s ability to cope with these demands.
• Stress encompasses he processes of perception
and evaluation; it therefore has direct effect on
the cognitive and interpersonal skills of an
individual, a vary basis of good CRM.
Note: Imaginary stress is called Anxiety
 Fatigue
• Alertness and fatigue are factors affecting
individual performance, hence, an important
fact of CRM.
• Fatigue diminishes the ability of an individual
to cope with stress and workload, eventually
imparts negative effects on the performance.
• Fatigue and stress both have been established
as two closely associated factors.
 Incapacitation
• Incapacitation: An ultimate situation of
performance decrement or performance
degradation can be defined as incapacitation
of one, both or all flight crew members.
• Pilot under such situation one must not forget
that CRM in its wider context is still there, in
fact more, important (e.g. CRM between the
non-incapacitated pilot and cabin crew, and
between flight deck and ATC).
 Role of Organization in
Implementation of CRM.
• Organizational effect on implementation of
CRM revolves around the following factors
1) Resource management: refers to the
management, allocation, and maintenance of
organizational resources, that including
human resource management (selection,
training, staffing), safety budgets, and also
equipment design (ergonomic specifications).
 Role of Organization in
Implementation of CRM.
2) Organizational climate : is also defined as the
"situation based consistencies in the
organization's treatment of individuals" .
- However, an organization's policies and culture are
also good markers of its climate.
- In conditions when policies are ill-defined,
adversarial, or conflicting, or when they are
supplanted by unofficial rules and values,
confusion emerges, and safety goes into a
compromised state within an organization.
 Role of Organization in
Implementation of CRM.
3) Operational processes : can be defined as
-formal processes (operational tempo, time pressures,
production quotas, incentive systems, schedules, etc.),
-procedures (performance standards, objectives,
documentation, instructions about procedures, standard
operating procedures-SOPs etc.)
- oversight within the organization (organizational self-study,
risk management, and the establishment and use of safety
programs).
- Poor upper-level management and decisions concerning
each of above mentioned organizational factors can also
impart negative, albeit indirect, effect on operator
performance and system safety.
 CRM and Cultural Diversity of Crew
• A number of air carriers are recruiting crew
from several nations. Flight operations are
having three cultural factors.
- the national culture surrounding the
organization,
- the professional culture of aviators,
- the company’s organizational culture.
 CRM and Cultural Diversity of Crew
(Cont.)
• Cultural difference are not only restricted to the
areas of command interaction and
communication, but also observed in terms of
preferences and tolerance for rules and
restrictions.
• These are the central issues in CRM training
incorporating the factors of cultural diversity.
• It has also been observed that the approaches to
CRM training that work well in one culture may
not be having the same results in others.
 Error Management Crew Resource
Management- EMCRM
• Organizations are striving for a ‘zero error’ in their
organizational functioning, still it is one of most
unattainable goal.
• As long as humans are functioning in complex work
environments, errors will always be there.
• Also in working condition like overstress, work
overload, or work under-load or boredom, the
probability of error is increased.
• Therefore best that organizations approach to cope
with human error is to decrease the probability of
errors and also to minimizing their consequences
 Error Management Crew Resource
Management- EMCRM (Cont.)
• Psychologists has established reasons human error and
been related to the mental processes .
• However, the management of error in complex working
systems like aviation is an organizational responsibility that
cannot be achieved by dealing with psychological issues
alone.
• Organizational strategies for error management, of which
CRM is one of the important fact, and also an efficient tool
for teaching error management strategies to flight crews .
• Fifth generation, of CRM, is primarily focusing on error
management The error management is the strategic
approach towards the avoidance of error and enhancement
of safety.
 Summarizing CRM
• Crew resource management principles are integral to optimal
outcomes, and to smooth and efficient flight operations.
• Areas of communication, leadership and forward planning
can result in improved conflict management, enhanced job
satisfaction and most importantly, flight safety.
• CRM is one of an array of tool that organizations can use to
manage error. It assumes the events will not always turn out
the way they were anticipated because humans will make
errors. Efficiently managing these errors is key to safe flying
operations, thereby avoiding small errors from escalating to
dangerous level .
 Summarizing CRM (Cont.)
• CRM has evolved in the airline industry for more than 20 years, and
has been extensively applied during the past decades.
• Survey Data from thousands of civilian and military participants in
the United States and abroad has been accrued. These data indicate
that most flight crew members accept CRM training, and find it
both relevant and useful .
• Specifically, what can be said is that CRM (generally) produces
positive reactions, enhance learning, and desired behavioral change
in a simulated or real environment .
• The job of aviator is a complex one, where application of key
components of CRM can result in better performance and
outcomes in the flight operations during normal and difficult flight
conditions.
 End of Session

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